


Close Your Eyes

by foxghost



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blindfolds, Bondage, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage), M/M, Mind Games, Mirrors, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Possessive Behavior, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Voyeurism, kmeme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:52:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxghost/pseuds/foxghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this <a href="http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8832.html?thread=32889984">Prompt</a>. Hawke and Anders are in a relationship, and Fenris has a crush. (the prompt is long, and contains spoilers.)</p><p>Features a very kinky & manipulative M!Hawke, a sweet and loving Anders, and our favourite broody Fenris. Eventual Fenders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love is Blind

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt is long, and the plot is in it. So if you don't want an obvious spoiler for later chapters, don't read the prompt 'til I'm done.
> 
> It will be angsty and Hawke will be one of the most twisted manipulative anti-hero I've ever written, and I've written a few. Don't say I didn't warn you. Possibly triggering for abusive relationships, but I've already marked this story non-con.

Anders combed his fingers through black hair, Hawke draped over him, their bodies still connected, “I love you.”

“Want a sandwich?” Hawke asked, slipping out of him and raising himself up on his elbows.

That should have been his first warning. Anders didn't take it – three years pining for the man and he was happy enough that Hakwe didn't turn him away after a kiss. With Hawke resting his head on Ander's chest and the tangle of silk sheets winded about their legs, eternal declarations of love could wait.

He broached the subject of moving in, and Hawke agreed to that readily enough, “don't want anything to happen to my mage, now, do I?”

There was an underlying tone of possession there, 'my' mage, and that brought warmth to Anders, as much as three simple words unspoken, “when do you ...”

Hawke had bright brown eyes that looked predatory and golden and cold in the dim light, the one arm he had around Anders' waist steely, “I want you in my bed every night. Starting tonight. We'll move your things in tomorrow.”

"But I,” had his patients and the clinic and he was busy tomorrow, but Hawke was flipping him over and biting hard into the juncture of his shoulder, one strong hand pining his hair to the pillow while he moved his mouth up the line of Anders' neck, licking at the edge of his hairline behind his ear.

A splayed hand smoothed from his shoulderblade to his buttocks, moving away momentarily to dip into a pot of salve, then back again with two fingers pushing at his entrance. Anders pushed back against them, but Hawke used his body to hold him down, “are you sure you still want to?”

Anders blushed, even if they were beyond blushing now, having done this twice already tonight, the rogue seemingly insatiable.

He was asking, though he knew Anders had never said no to him before, even when the matter clashed with his moral judgement. This was so simple by comparison, a question of flesh and body and wants, and the answer he gave in a stubborn push of his own that caused them both to groan, and, “yes.”

Hawke slicked himself up instead, pushing into Anders while keeping himself draped over the mage – his mage – as his hips snapped forward, keeping one hand over Anders' hair and another over his hip so that he was all but immobile beneath Hawke, not even able to push back, “you'll do anything for me, won't you?”

“Yes, Hawke,” Anders peered at him sideways, Hawke leaning over him much too close for his eyes to focus, everything blurring into the darkness of Hawke's hair that brushed his temples and the beard rasping against his own stubble.

“Oh, Anders,” Hawke's breath tickled his ear, syrupy tenor roughened with sex, “you're too sweet. Close your eyes.”

Those arms left him for a few brief seconds, then the sound of fabric being dragged across the sheets, and then a wide band was wrapped about his head to cover his eyes, "what are you doing?”

“Playing with you,” Hawke's hand crept down under them and grasped Anders' erection, silencing his protests.

Anders had no real complaints after moving in; Bodahn and Orana both treated him as an equal to Hawke, even though he was probably never going to get used to being called 'Master Anders.' Hawke made sure Anders was well taken care of in every way – taking him out to shop for clothes, bringing him lunch down at the clinic when Anders all but forgot about food, fussing over even his papercuts.

But everything seemed to be a game to Hawke. He took nothing and no one seriously, and Anders sometimes wondered, if he too, was just another game. Perhaps Anders was a toy, to dress and feed and look at, to anger and manipulate all so Hawke could find all the faces Anders was capable of.

The problem, and it took months after moving out for Anders to finally realise this, was that Hawke never asked for his opinion on anything.

 _Close your eyes._ Love was blind.

Anders was not inexperienced. When he said that everyone was kissing everyone in the Lake Calenhad Circle, it was rather implied that he was doing a majority of the kissing. On this many escapes, he made it a point to experience as many things – and people, sometimes as many as the room could fit at the same time – as possible, and yet most of his trysts were confined to quick, fevered affairs, not the slow and drawn out seduction that Hawke was interested in.

Hawke introduced Anders to different textures with leather gloves and silk ties, feathers and his velvet house robe. Once he made Anders wear a soft, velvet lined rope that ran from his neck down to his crotch and back up over his cleft to connect to the loop around his neck again, loose enough to be comfortable and yet a reminder that he was touched, always.

He also liked to watch.

The large silver mirror was added to their bedroom the very next day after Anders moved in. It was placed near the wardrobe, not next to it. It was also a tall mirror, and angled a little downwards obstensibly for Hawke to match his shoes to his shirt properly.

Anders watched Hawke's reflected, upside down smile as the man pounded into him, a hand locked in his blond hair so that he couldn't look away, and knew exactly why the mirror was placed across from them, tilted at that angle to capture both of them taking up the full width of the bed.

“I want to see your face when you come,” Hawke was gentle, this time but not all the time, eyes meeting his in the mirror as he ran his tongue in a line up the edge of Anders' ear. When he lifted his head away, the hand in Anders' hair moved down to his shoulder, allowing him to make his own choice on whether he was to watch, or not.

Anders stayed where he was, hair disheveled, a waterfall of red gold over the edge of the bed, and he came splattering over his stomach. Hawke stared straight at him, upside down and backwards, his lips quirking down into a smile.

Even in the bedroom, Hawke made sure Anders was always taken care of. No choices were given or taken, just Hawke in control, coaxing all he wanted out of his mage.

Anders couldn't see through the black blindfold, and everything felt more intense without his eyes to anticipate movement and textures. Fingers wrapped in doeskin gloves cupped his balls, a hot mouth on his cock, something cold and hard and alien nudging at his entrance, “what is that?”

It was pushed inside of him before that question was answered, gentle kisses on the soft skin of his lower abdomen to distract him from the invasion, tongue laving up his cock in lieu of asking for permission, “just a toy.”

Anders hadn't questioned Hawke before, not in the bedroom, but there was a first time for everything, “why?”

A moment of silence so long it bordered on the uncomfortable, Anders with his hands bound behind him and kneeling on the bed, as if to pray – maybe that was the intention, that Hawke fancied himself a god to Anders, in bed – while Hawke moved away, then back, Anders feeling the wave of body heat instead of using his eyes.

He pressed kisses along Anders' jaw, enveloping him in those arms, always stronger than the wiry way they looked, “because I want to see you fuck yourself on it while I suck you off.”

Anders let out a strangled moan and his cock jumped at the words, and Hawke knew that he couldn't say no.

He moved back down then, and made good on his words, holding onto the base of the toy while Anders rode on it, thrusting into Hawke's mouth.

It was always about what Hawke wanted, but Anders could not find fault in whatever new toy or trick he tried out in the bedroom, since Hawke always made sure Anders enjoyed it. Lying in his arms afterwards, he always felt a little drained, his body sated and his heart empty.

Hawke gave him a little twitch in his lips and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes whenever Anders professed his love, as though he heard it, but didn't believe it. It was the same resigned smile that he wore whenever Varric told them a particular job was going to be easy as pie or when Isabela lamented of how boring their current mission was.

Hawke survived because he expected the dragons and the undead that showed up unerringly no longer than a half hour after someone said it was too quiet, and when the battle was over he would mutter, “like death and taxes.”

“I love you, Garrett Hawke.”

Anders mumbled into the arms that encircled him, pushing himself back closer to Hawke's chest, warm and yielding with a steady heartbeat that Anders could count on to be there for him, if not for openly expressed love. He unwrapped one of the hands clasped over his shoulder and held it, kissed Hawke's knuckles, and closed his eyes.


	2. A Game of Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris has a little crush.

Fenris hated the abomination that Hawke insisted on keeping around.

At least he did three, or perhaps two years ago, snarling every time he needed healing, taking potions instead of letting Anders envelop him in calming magic. A few times that first year they knew one another, Fenris ended up with infections, suffering in his mansion alone until Hawke all but carried him down to the clinic, where Anders nursed him back to health, feeding him beef tea while he was feverish and delirious.

He always left as soon as he was able, and the last time not because he couldn't stand to be there.

Anders was free with his touch. He treated everyone the same way, from the child lying on a cot with a broken leg to the old man with influenza. Fenris learned from the few days he spent in the clinic that he wasn't the only one who abhorred magic and cursed the mage while they were being healed.

He didn't know how Anders put up with it, day in and day out. Fenris would have killed the ungrateful wretches, but Anders wasn't Fenris. Anders was like no one he had ever met.

Fenris was used to hatred and avarice, the two mainstays of magisters, both of which were excuses for the stinging, iron-tinged taste of blood magic. He was convinced that Anders was fooling everyone with his selfless act, that behind the smile and those warm amber eyes hid a man who would lord over a slave if he was given a chance.

“If he wanted to be a magister, he wouldn't be in Kirkwall,” Hawke said one day, as they argued over Anders yet again, “healing people for free in dark town isn't going to get him into the Tevinter assembly.”

Fenris couldn't help but agree when it was Anders' magic that washed over him; it was different from anything he had experienced, warm and soft and tingled under his skin, and carried a feeling that reminded him of being cradled – something faint and far away that he couldn't remember, but it made him feel cherished and safe.

“If you're looking for an opportunist in Anders, you're not going to find it,” Hawke chuckled, taking a sip of aggregio and handing the bottle back to Fenris, “come over to the mansion and ask for me.”

After one last long stay at the clinic, he allowed the mage to heal him after their skirmishes instead of waiting for the dirt and tainted blood to fester under his skin. But if anything, Fenris was stubborn, and he didn't know how to deal with people. Distrust was already something the mage expected of him, so they spoke little.

Fenris hoarded every bit of touch he was given. Sometimes he dreamt of Anders, innocent dreams, nothing more than replayed memories of being fussed over in the dark town clinic, nothing less than the gentle way his white hair was tucked behind his ear while Anders cleaned a wound on his cheek.

Anders had shown him all the compassion Fenris knew since he arrived in Kirkwall – he remembered nothing of his life before the lyrium brands were burned into his flesh, and then on to a life of cruelty and blood afterwards. His mind drifted to the fog warriors he met in Seheron in his brief, first days of freedom, and how he repaid their kindness with bloodshed.

He woke ashamed and alone, shivering in his cold borrowed mansion with its cracked, open roof. He would stare at the lightening sky, if it was dawn, wondering how like himself his chosen surroundings were, falling into disuse one crumbling stone at a time.

Anders' clinic was always warm, whenever he found himself waking up in it, heated by the cauldron with its boiling elfroot and the torches Anders kept for light, and perhaps by the very presence of the resident healer himself.

He probably thought that Fenris was a lot like the bigoted, brainwashed children he was sometimes asked to heal, who did not know any better than to bite the hand that helped them. Truly, at heart Fenris was no older. His memories extended to ten years, and most of that as a quiet statue of a magister's body guard.

That magic and that touch, those warm amber eyes crinkling as he smiled when he knew his magic was being useful, they chipped away at Fenris' prejudice like water drops carving a channel in stone, slow but relentless.

After three years, he still couldn't speak to the mage. If he was someone else – Varric, or Isabela, even Sebastian – he would have apologised for all the appalling things he had said and all the names he had called the mage, and perhaps call him by his name and not just spat out the word 'mage' like a curse every time he needed to catch Anders' attention. As Isabela would have said, “it's called moving on.” But Fenris didn't know how to move on, as demonstrated by the mushrooms growing on his carpet and the cobwebs on the chandelier.

He finally got the courage for one thing he owed Anders, on Sundermount, as the mage magicked away the pain in his leg and closed the gash that took him down to the ground.

“Thank you,” Fenris said, not looking up. It was the very first time he said it to the abomination – mage, no, Anders – and he expected scorn, perhaps a derisive laugh or sarcastic words, which the mage had plenty of.

Anders gave him a look of genuine surprise, and then a warm smile spread across his face without a trace of mockery, “you're welcome.”

Hawke studied them, standing not too far off behind the mage – which he had the habit now of calling his – with a crease in his eyebrows and looking unfriendly, bright brown eyes simmering with anger. Fenris blinked once and that anger was gone, replaced by a smile.

He approached them then, and offered a hand for Fenris to help him up. The grip was bone crushing and much harder than it needed to be, a warning disguised. Fenris lifted his eyes questioningly at his friend, but Hawke gave him nothing, the same face he wore playing cards.

Hawke was looking for a tell. Fenris tried his hardest to not give him one, but he knew that Hawke would find it eventually. Fenris was good – but Hawke was always a better player.

He did find it, ironically at the next Wicked Grace night in Varric's suite, as Fenris stole a glance at Anders across the diagonal of the table that separated them. Hawke pulled Anders into his arms, jostling the drink he held and spilling it all over his chest.

Hawke pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began wiping it down, over Anders' protestations that he could do it himself, getting flustered over the attention, though no one else, other than Fenris, seemed to have been focused on the two of them. He couldn't look away, his eyes honing in on the colour on Anders' cheeks, two spots of pink standing out on his pale skin.

Fenris was sure that he was the only one who saw it, when Hawke reached inside Anders' shirt and tugged on something until it was visible over the edge of his neckline. He gave Fenris a private sneer, lopsided and cold, and pulled on what looked like a red rope sitting on Anders' clavicle.

The effect was immediate and jarring, the mage practically fell into Hawke's lap, face flushing crimson, fingers clutching at Hawke's lapel so tight his knuckles turned white.

“I think you've had enough to drink,” Hawke said, loud enough for everyone to hear, explaining away Anders' condition, but Fenris got the message.

_Look what he does for me. Only for me._

__Hawke never rescinded his friendship. He still showed up by Fenris' door thrice a week with a book, a bottle of wine in hand. They talked about everything and nothing, from the politics of Kirkwall to the workings of the Tevinter chantry, and neither of them mentioned the mage living in the Hawke mansion sleeping in Hawke's bed.

“I've seen the way you look at him,” it had been at least three months since the incident in the Hanged Man; Fenris thought that Hawke had forgotten all about it, but he should have known better. Nothing escaped Hawke's notice and he wasn't one to simply forget trespasses.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I'm not stupid, Fenris.”

Of all the things Garrett Hawke was – egotistical, opportunistic, thief, liar – no one could fault him for stupidity, “what do you expect me to say?”

“The truth, maybe?” That smug smile crept into his face again. Fenris never liked that look on Hawke – it was the one he threw on just before he doublecrossed someone. If he hadn't known the man for so long he would have called it a reassuring smile. To Fenris it was anything but.

Fenris kept his expression blank and said nothing.

“You used to call him an abomination to his face, remember that?” Hawke leaned back into the chair then, one of the only ones that didn't wobble in this abandoned mansion Fenris called a home.

“That is the thing he is.”

“Anders hates you,” Hawke enunciated every syllable, dragging it out.

It wasn't surprising and it shouldn't have hurt this much, but the words were like a punch to the gut, “why should I care what your pet mage thinks about me?”

Hawke snorted, a huff of air expelled quickly with his eyes closed, “and it's no wonder, the way you've treated him over the years. He only ever really let you stay in his clinic because I begged him to.”

And they had to both know that was a lie, Fenris remembered the way the mage touched him, without a hint of annoyance at all, just the same tender attention he lavished on everyone, no less.

“You've had too much wine, Hawke. Go home.”

They only finished one bottle between them, and that was at least an hour ago. It was an out, anyway, if Hawke regretted his words in the least, then he could turn around and they would both forget this ever happened.

“You should learn to be a little more honest, Fenris,” and he did take Fenris' advice, closing the door behind him.

Fenris waited until he heard the echo of the front door closing before throwing the empty wine bottle at the wall, where he imagined it passed through the space Hawke's head was when he spat out those three hated words.

Hawke was planning something, like the cards he lined up in front of his eyes while he bluffed and said, 'all in.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I will tell you what Anders was wearing under his robes ... in the next chapter.


	3. First Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke shows his cards.

_NO ANDERS AT CARDS TONIGHT. COME SEE YOUR FRIENDS. HAWKE._

Fenris hadn't been at Wicked Grace night for three weeks.

Hawke pretended that their little spat never happened; he kept showing up at the mansion, the reading lessons he began with Fenris three years ago went on without pause. Going to the Hanged Man was a completely different matter, since Anders was always there with Hawke, and Fenris wasn't sure if that was something he could deal with yet.

Not until Hawke decided to show his hands.

The message was written in all the words that Hawke knew he understood, in block print and delivered by Orana – since Fenris could never say no to Orana. The poor girl was terrified to be outside of the Hawke estate as it was, with her slave mentality inherited from Fenris' old masters. The hesitated knocking and the reedy little voice calling out 'Master Fenris' repeatedly at his door was impossible to ignore, and Hawke had to know that it set his teeth on edge.

Of course he knew. If Orana was unable to get Fenris' attention, she would walk all the way back to the mansion shaking in fear of a beating, and when she offered herself to Hawke and he refused to beat her, she would cower for the entire week thinking that the punishment would come when she least expected it.

Hawke knew that Fenris would not subject Orana to psychological torture. Fenris answered the door, took the message, and assured Orana that yes, he would be there and she could head home knowing that her task was completed successfully.

Now that he was in the Hanged Man, sitting across from Hawke halfway through that bottle of Aggregio he brought, Fenris wondered why he stayed away for so long.

As promised, Hawke left Anders at home.

“Too busy with his correspondences and manifestos and creating another Tevinter Imperium,” Hawke pointed out with a smirk directed his way.

Laughter and drink, gossip and company; they were all the little things Fenris missed but didn't want to admit he needed. Varric patted him on the back and told him not to be a stranger, Isabela shoved her breasts in his face and asked him how he had been, Merrill broke out in a fit of giggles and hugged him, too drunk to remember their animosity, and even Aveline raised her glass as he walked in.

“This is much better than drinking alone, isn't it?” Hawke tipped his chin at Fenris, and the smile went all the way up to his eyes.

They were both overconfident, in hindsight. Fenris should have known better than to think that he could read Hawke, a man who allowed him the occasional win only because he wanted to keep Fenris playing. At the moment, Fenris was too happy with the presence of his best friends to worry about any schemes Hawke was hatching in his head.

As for Hawke, he always thought he won in the end, even if the loss was on all sides.

The night wore on and the merriment chipped away at Fenris' guard. Finally, when he announced his departure, Hawke offered, “I'll walk with you.”

He had no reason to say no to his oldest friend and neighbour in Kirkwall, and they took the short walk from the Hanged Man to hightown, up the numerous steps, supporting each other some of the way, both a little tipsy. Fenris almost felt that he missed this – the comaraderie of their drunken walk from lowtown together, a routine for them up until the mage moved in with Hawke.

“Why don't you come by the estate? Orana made apple pie today and she made extras just for you,” Hawke mentioned as though in passing when they came near their parting point.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” Fenris blurted out.

Hawke slowed down his steps, a hand over Fenris' shoulders already steering him in the direction of the Hawke estate, “why?”

First card placed on the table and Fenris had nothing. _Why indeed?_ Any reason he could give that had an iota of truth would involve admitting his attraction to the mage. He had no choice but to agree to a drink at the estate and the offer of pie. Fenris made one last feeble attempt, “it's a little late.”

“That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard. You haven't been by in ages. Come on, Fenris,” and any more objections would have made the reason of his discomfort obvious. Fenris said nothing more and allowed Hawke to march him the rest of the way to his house.

 _Rather like a mage to the Gallows,_ thought Fenris, and the irony did not escape him.

Orana was there to greet them at the door, then quickly dashing off to the kitchen to plate their desserts. She seemed overjoyed to see Fenris, which collaborated with Hawke's story that she made extra pie for him. Maybe all his apprehension was for nothing, after all. The elvhen girl was back in a flash, before Hawke managed to get all the hooks undone on his coat, carrying a tray of desserts and snifters.

The illusion that the visit was unplanned came tumbling down as they took seats in the study, and a familiar voice drifted down from the library above them, “welcome home, love.”

“Anders. Come join us for a drink,” Hawke called out, taking the tray from Orana and setting it on a low table.

There were three empty snifters and three small plates of pies on them.

Fenris stared at it and cursed his own stupidity. Orana had that tray with her the whole time they walked from the foyer, and somehow his mind came to the conclusion that they were all eating together. There was no way Fenris would have logically thought that, not the way he knew Orana. She still had the mindset of a slave, and a slave never ate with her masters.

Hawke smiled faintly and poured them each a fruit brandy, “it's from Orlais. Eaux de vie framboise – it should cater to your expensive tastes.”

Fenris instinctively took the farthest armchair from the door with a clear view of the exit. Hawke sat across from him, which left one last seat between them, facing the fireplace.

“Hello, Fenris,” the mage smiled at him, oblivious to the thickness of the tension in the room. He had on a loose fitting dark blue silk shirt with a high collar and black drawstring pants of a similar material, presumably Hawke's, since the clothes looked to be a little big on him. His hair was out of its tie, and his cheeks were flushed, as though the room was on the side of too warm.

Fenris had never seen Anders with his hair down before. It framed his face casting him in shadows that made his features soft and androgynous, particularly while he sat in that center chair facing the fire, the dark colours of his clothing contrasted perfectly with his red gold hair and milky white skin.

If Hawke planned this evening, then he had done it down to the last detail, to the way Anders' ivory fingers curling beautifully over the globe of a snifter and how the light from the fire set his cheeks aglow.

“Hawke was just telling me that you're busy building a new Imperium,” Fenris broke the silence in causal tones. It was the worst possible topic he could have began with, guaranteeing a verbal sparring match with the mage.

If only Anders would take the bait; Fenris could have made a perfect exit. But Hawke had his hand over Anders' knee, and it tightened over the joint with a quick clench that was barely noticeable even with elvhen eyes. Anders just took a sip of his brandy and said, “nothing quite so ambitious, I'm afraid.”

“It's just the manifesto again. I told him that if he's going to stay home and brood in the library all night, Justice better let him get drunk when I get home,” and on that note, Hawke topped up the brandy in Anders' snifter.

The conversation flowed between the three of them, lubricated by an endless pouring of fruit brandy and witty, mediating remarks from Hawke. The drink was sweet on the palate, and so flavourful on the nose it was like walking into an orchard. As mild as the taste was, after only three glasses Fenris wasn't sure if he could get up and walk out of the study without faling over.

“Drinks like a wine, hits like a whiskey,” Hawke commented, and Fenris tried hard to remember whether Hawke refilled that snifter in his left hand at all or if he was still on his first one.

Anders giggled, leaning over on to the table and stretching his shirt taut over his shoulders, “you're telling me."

There was an impression of a pattern over Anders' back, barely visible if not for the way silk traced every single ridge and line when placed over anything remotely uneven, catching the light from the lamps from the library behind them. Fenris narrowed his eyes and tried to focus on it and saw repeated diamond shapes down Anders' spine, each about the size of his palm, with lines going off the points to the sides and disappearing into the dark blue of his shirt.

“I'll go get you a blanket,” Hawke placed his glass down on their low table.

As Fenris looked on, Hawke touched Anders' hair affectionately, sweeping it aside and out of his dessert plate to join its brethren, and he opened Anders' collar where it dug into his throat so he could breathe better while he fell asleep on the table, before turning to leave the room, taking the empty plates with him.

The door creaked shut behind Hawke, leaving silence bathed in the quiet crackle of the fire and Anders' soft purring snore. Fenris contemplated going home; it was probably very late, and the streets of hightown were still dangerous to walk alone past a certain hour, but his legs were filled with lead and the intricate pattern on Anders' back was mesmerizing.

A strand of red rope peeked over the open collar, and Fenris could imagine the line of it, spreading out just under his neck, turning into a diamond shape that connected to another, all the way down his spine and disappearing over the waistline of Anders' pants. Before he knew what he was doing, Fenris pulled one gauntlet off -

-and touched the tips of his fingers to it. A road map of knots was under the thin silk, each one bundled into a point underneath so the hard nub of each knot pressed into Anders' skin. He moved his hand back up to the neckline and tugged upwards, just a little pull, and saw the whole network roll towards his fingers, and Anders immediately arched his back and _moaned,_ still asleep, “...Garrett.”

“Curiosity. Killed the proverbial cat and all that,” Hawke leaned against the door frame, blanket slung casually over one arm, his other hand on the brass handle.

Fenris snatched his fingers back as soon as the first word reached his ears, but how had he not heard the door open? Hawke answered that silent question, visibly pushing down on the door as he closed it again, wearing a smug smile. The hinges let out a whine just like the one he heard before, deafening in its implication.

After all, he planned this evening and left nothing to chance.

“I was just ...” he was at a loss for words. The need to know did cause his initial touch, but once he saw the extent of the pattern, his desire to find out more went beyond simple curiosity. The network of complex lines reminded him of something, perhaps himself and the way his own lyrium brands made him dance like a puppet under his old master's strings. His well of anger broke at the thought of that, “Anders is not your slave, Hawke.”

“No?” Hawke flashed a mocking smile, white teeth and bright brown eyes that shone with a predatory gleam. Fenris was at a disadvantage; Hawke had been feeding them both alcohol while imbibing hardly any himself. He dropped the blanket and wrapped one arm around Anders' middle and pulled him up, keeping the mage's back to Fenris, “wake up, dear. You can't sleep in your clothes.”

“Mmm. Where's Fenris?” Anders asked, voice honey soft and slurring from drink. He turned his head as if to glance at the chair that Fenris was sitting in, but Hawke twined one hand into blond hair and held him still.

“You fell asleep. He went home,” Hawke stared right at Fenris then, and dared him to get up. He could lie to himself all he wanted and say that a combination of alcohol and years of following Hawke's orders rooted Fenris to his chair, but the only truth that was possible, the one he had to face later in his mansion staring at a crumbling wall, was this: if he was given a chance to be near Anders in any capacity, he would have taken it.

Hawke began rolling the silk shirt up Anders' torso, “close your eyes for me.”

The familiar command was followed without question, and Anders threw his arms over Hawke's neck as soon as they were free of his shirt, Hawke never fully pulling it over Anders' head, but using the sleeves to wrap it around his eyes instead, creating a makeshift blindfold. He pulled the drawstring on the pants next, the fabric quickly fluttering down and pooling at Anders' feet.

Hawke sat down then, and pulled Anders to straddle him, hooking his knees over the arms of his chair, spread over Hawke's lap with his arms draping over the back of the rogue's neck.

The only thing he had left on was the rope harness, tied and retied again, knotted over and under, symmetrical across his body. The dark blood red colour complimented his skin and the lines were placed to accentuate his beauty, emphasizing the edges of his muscles and the leanness of his body, like the white lyrium lines that ran over Fenris' own dusky skin.

The parallel was startling, as Hawke pulled on a line somewhere around Anders' stomach and the knots dug into the skin of his back, and Anders tensed all over, falling forwards to bury his face in Hawke's neck. Hawke was no mage, but he had made Anders his thrall.

Fenris' eyes followed the red lines, the collected strands running towards the cleft at the base of Anders' spine, around a silver knob that could only be the base of a plug, and under that the rope knotted over and over itself, made into a button-like nub that pushed into the skin beneath the plug. Hawke pulled on the rope again, and Anders writhed, “Hawke, please ...”

“Do you want me to take the whole thing off?” He asked, keeping his gaze on Fenris, pulling on the rope rhythmically all the while, the thick knot pushing into the skin of Anders' perineum and the toy shifing its angle with every move.

“No,” his voice reduced to a needy whine, Anders wiggled his hips and tried to show Hawke something that Fenris couldn't catch from his place behind the mage. “Just the ...”

“I'll take it off,” Hawke pushed Anders off of the chair gently, then turned him around for the mage to sit on his lap. Fenris immediately saw what Anders wanted off – there was a separate binding around his penis, down under the sac and over, wrapped in a spriral all the way up and down the shaft to prevent blood from filling his erection. Anders was half-hard in it already and any more arousal would probably be painful.

“Now Garrett, please,” the mage grounded his arse on Hawke's crotch, flushed all over and reddened under the lines of the rope.

“Do something for me. Pretend Fenris is still in that chair,” Hawke placed his hands behind Anders' knees to pull them apart, “and hold yourself open.”

Hawke had one arm around Anders' waist, and as he pulled the mage to lean back on him, Anders complied, hands coming under his knees to spread himself, “but why -”

“Because it will be fun,” Hawke chuckled into Anders' neck. His free hand snuck down to a knot holding the improvised chastity belt and freed Anders from its strangling hold. Anders breathed a sigh of relief, blood rushing to the area filling his erection quickly, and soon he was proud and bobbing between his legs, “you've been so good wearing this all day for me. You deserve some fun.”

“Touch me,” Anders pleaded. Fenris knew that voice like his own, and those words were chilling in its familiarity, as though he was hearing himself the way he used to sound, in memories at the edge of recollection.

Hawke moved his hand up from Anders' waist, brushing his hands over the strands of rope that ran horizontally across his torso as though Anders was a harp, and Anders rewarded the sentiment with a melody of moans. His free hand moved to grasp Anders' cock, “can you feel Fenris' gaze on you? Feel those beautiful green eyes as they burn into your skin.”

It was all true. Fenris couldn't look away and he didn't want to. Anders was beautiful with skin lit from within, flushed and spread open. With the words Hawke supplied, Anders was on display for Fenris, picturing his gaze on him and getting more aroused on the image.

In between panting, Anders managed a 'yes,' as he rocked himself into Hawke's hand, legs spread so wide that he was able to plant his feet into the armrests. The hand that rested over the patchwork of ropes grabbed at it suddenly, tightening the trap over Anders' entire body, pulling it away from his chest and back to it with a slow, steady rhythm, jostling the toy lodged inside of him. Anders gave into it, not trying to set his own pace anymore, losing himself to Hawke.

Hawke sped up his hand, matching the massage of the knots, and said loud enough for them all to hear, “Fenris is very pretty, isn't he?”

“Yes,” said Anders, given over to the sensation of this trap he had grown to love, and his breathless word could have been an affirmation to his impending climax, or an answer to Hawke's question.

Hawke stared straight at Fenris then, and said, “imagine that it's Fenris fucking your ass, and it's his hand on your cock.”

Green eyes widened at these words, staring as Anders whimpered and let himsef be handled by the man he trusted, while keeping an image of Fenris behind his blindfold.

“Hawke...” Anders' breathing quickened, warning them both to how close to the edge he was becoming, and Hawke only sped up.

There was an eerie smile on Hawke's face, a cross between amusement and triumph, “call out his name for me when you come, Anders.”

“I'm going to come - Fenris!” Anders' whole body pushed against his ropes, tension writ in the muscles that bulged over the red lines, as he let go, mouth open and snapping his head back on to Hawke's shoulder. He came shuddering in Hawke's arms, who had one hand wrapped around his shaft milking him to his last drop and another playing him like a puppet, touching every bit of skin the knots dug into.

Hawke gathered Anders' legs and arranged the mage sideways on his lap, cradling him with one arm behind his lower back, and Anders wrapped his arms around Hawke's neck again, leaning into his embrace. Not once did he attempt to remove the blindfold, though his hands were free.

“You're not my slave, Anders,” Hawke raised one cum-smeared hand and touched it to Anders' lips, and a tongue darted out, cleaning himself off of the hand obediently. When he was done, Hawke kissed him, swiping his tongue across Anders' perpetual pout and licking the seed off his lips, “But you are mine.”

“Always,” the answer came mid-kiss, spoken with his lips pressed to Hawke's own.

Hawke tucked an arm under Anders' knees, picking him up easily, and started walking away from Fenris and out of the study.

Anders stopped kissing Hawke long enough to object, “I can walk.”

“No you can't. You taste like raspberries,” Hawke casually threw a glance behind him at Fenris. He spoke his next question into Anders' pale throat, “do you have any idea how much you drank?”

Anders said something, but the words were so garbled and far enough away that Fenris could no longer hear them. He sat with his mouth agape in the chair farthest away from the door, safe from incoming danger but not from within.

Fenris had an image of Anders calling his name in ecstasy burned into his mind's eye, and it refused to fade. He was hard in his tights, outlined against the leather.

He waited, willing his erection away so that he could get on with his journey across the cold nightime hightown streets alone. Fenris was used to drinking and fuctioning well on alcohol, and even in his slightly addled state he knew that he played right into Hawke's hands, but other than rubbing his ownership of Anders in Fenris' face, this show of power seemingly had no particular purpose.

“Orana's prepared a room for you, if you want to stay.”

Hawke. Fenris pulled himself away from his thoughts, raising his head from the nest of his hands, “why did you -” _do any of this,_ for the answer to that question eluded him.

“Of course, if you're here in the morning, then Anders will probably figure out that you were sitting there all along,” and at that he started laughing, leaning into the door frame and slapping his thigh.

“Why would you do this to him?” Fenris waited for that fit of laughter to die down, and pushed himself away from the table. He had sobered up some, not by the virtue of the alcohol leaving his system but from the shock of their evening.

“Why do anything?” Hawke let out a last chuckle, covering his mouth with a fist, “nevermind. You're much too serious to get it.”

“You made a slave of your mage -” even if he had his share of opinions on mages, the way Hawke had enslaved his very own lover was alarming.

“He's perfectly happy,” Hawke shook his head, holding on to a rueful smile, “were you this happy? When you were a slave?”

Fenris had no words, but he knew Hawke was right in his own twisted way. Fenris was a different person then, but there was an order, a harmony in following orders implicitly without question, “only because I didn't know any better.”

He stormed out, ignoring the discomfort in his tights and the slight dizziness he still felt from the brandy. Before the front door closed behind him, he heard Hawke's voice calling out, “I'll see you on Friday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eaux de vie framboise is a fruit brandy made from raspberries, and it is not aged. Hawke's description of it is quite accurate. It's sweet on the first taste and smells like an orchard – doesn't have that OMG alcohol smell in the snifter until you warm it up, but it is 40% alcohol minimum, so it goes down dry and lights up in your stomach. It is a brandy easily over-indulged and gives you a banging hangover the next day.
> 
> Wearable rope bondage or Karada: the one arrangement that I have in mind is a pretty basic one that's used on females, but modified for men. [A lot like this one.](http://strangetreats.blogspot.com/2011/03/black-bondage.html) But with thicker, red ropes, with more knotting where the ropes cross, and done backwards so the diamond pattern goes in the back and the straight rope with hard knots go in the front. The idea is to keep knots on all the 'pressure points' or in this case, erogenous zones, so that the body is constantly massaged by rounded knots with every step. Why the extra knots? Velvet slips, so a simple turn is not going to lock the karada in place.
> 
> Here are some [instructions](http://strangetreats.blogspot.com/2011/03/instructions-for-harness.html) in case you want to try it out. Hint: Natural jute rope is traditional and easier to work with. If using synthetic rope, do what Hawke did and knot every turn.


	4. Lazy Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett Hawke and Anders are not on the same page at all.

Mornings like this one reminded him of all the reasons why he fell in love with Garrett Hawke.

Anders had a splitting headache the likes of which was comparable to the morning after his Grey Warden Joining. What little light that peeked through the heavy curtains threw bands of bright white on the walls, and even that was adding to the pounding in his head.

He turned onto his side. Garrett's side of the bed was empty, but still warm, and his pillow smelled of raspberries and apples. Anders clutched it to his chest, burrying his nose in it and breathed in his lover's scent beneath the alcohol, rolling onto his back with the pillow over his eyes. Much better.

The mattress sank beside him, and it could have been either the mabari or Hawke. Anders didn't bother checking which, “missing me already?”

“Every second,” Anders smiled. Hawke was even considerate enough to speak as quietly as possible.

Hawke slipped an arm under his neck and pulled the pillow off, “it's nearly noon.”

Anders wanted to complain about the pounding headache that no amount of extra sleep could help, but Hawke beat him to it, holding a potion by his lips. Foul, disgusting stuff, but it was his very own concoction, thick with elfroot and embrium with enough alcohol to keep it viscous, a guaranteed hangover cure.

He took it and drank it down in one draught, making a face over the taste. Hawke laughed, hugging Anders close to his chest and offered a slice of strawberry by touching it to Anders' lower lip, “Orana made porridge. I've cut up some fresh fruit.”

“She didn't kick you out of the kitchen?” Anders snuggled in and let himself be pampered. He didn't drink often, but on mornings where Garrett knew Anders would wake up with a hangover, he was always there, ready with a potion and food that he knew his mage could stomach.

On mornings like these, Hawke was attentive and loving and everything he ever wanted.

“You're forgetting that I'm very sneaky,” Hawke finished popping the last bit of fruit into Anders' mouth, and let go of the mage long enough to pour a mug of water. He handed it to Anders, who took it with a muttered 'thanks.'

“Fenris must feel terrible right now,” Anders had his face in the mug, so he didn't see the way Hawke's shoulders tensed up when the elf's name was mentioned.

“You have been getting along better with him ... lately,” Hawke knew Anders well enough by now that he knew the mage had no memories of last night beyond the point where he fell sleep on the table. Anders was predictable like that – once he was drunk enough to pass out, whatever happened afterwards left no mark at all.

Anders finished his water and handed the mug to Hawke, “you mean we're being civil. Did you say something to him?”

“How did you guess?” The tension he held before turned into a passable smile.

“I just can't imagine him waking up one day and deciding that he'd be nice to me,” Anders pushed the covers aside and dragged himself to the bathroom, where the copper tub was already filled with steaming hot water. He sighed, breathing in steam fragrant with more elfroot and embrium, “thank you, love.”

“Anders,” Hawke began, and immediately paused. Anders had turned to look at him, a little haggard and disheveled, still sporting some redness on his skin from the rope harness he wore. Even hungover with bags under his eyes, he was breathtakingly beautiful.

“What is it, Garrett?” Anders stood there, halfway into the bathroom – fully nude and comfortable in it – unaware of the effect he had on anyone around him, let alone the effect he had on Garrett Hawke.

He could remember the very moment he fell in love with Anders. It was love at first sight, while Anders still had his eyes closed, hands glowing with spirit energy. The feeling intensified when Anders nearly collapsed afterwards. Someone who was so selfless as to give too much of himself - Hawke was doomed before Anders even opened his eyes.

Hawke had always tried to give Anders everything he wanted before he asked for it. There were some things Anders would never ask for, out of pride or simply a show of not taking advantage, such as clothes, food, and the weekly donation that Hawke had been making to the clinic through Lirene, anonymously, since he moved to hightown and had the money to spare.

If he could, he would give Anders the world. He knew he wasn't the Maker, and he couldn't abolish the Chantry and disintegrate the Circles and outlaw templars. Hawke hadn't even been able to keep his own sister out of the Gallows. He was determined not to allow that to happen to Anders; the lengths he went to – the lyrium bribes and the walking orders his 'friends' snuck out of the Gallows to keep him abreast of exactly when templars were about to raid darktown – Anders had no idea.

Danger was something that he managed to keep the mage out of. But other things, such as the looks Fenris had been giving his mage, puppy eyes and the way his mouth went slack over Anders' healing magic, was more subtle and harder to forestall.

He always wondered if there was something there between Anders and Fenris. After all, they were both beautiful people while Hawke himself was as common as dirt, with his scarred Ferelden nose and unremarkable brown eyes. Sure, he was a seasoned rogue with a silver tongue, but so was Varric, and a case could be argued as to who was better looking.

The only thing he had going for him, the way Hawke saw it, was his generosity; his willingness to provide anything and everything Anders might want or need.

Well, he had to find out sooner or later, “do you find Fenris attractive?”

“You're asking me if our exotic lyrium-covered Tevinter elf is attractive? That's not even a fair question,” Anders turned and lowered himelf into the copper tub, sighing as the hot water enveloped him.

“And that's not an answer,” Hawke grabbed a comb from the vanity and stepped into the bathroom. Settling himself on a bench behind the tub, he began combing out the knots in Anders' fine blond hair.

“He's gorgeous. To say otherwise would be lying,” said Anders, leaning his head over the edge of the bathtub for Hawke's hands to better work on his hair. “When we first met I had a little crush on him.”

“You did?” His hands stilled briefly, but Hawke kept his voice level.

“For about five seconds. Right up until he opened his mouth,” and Anders remembered those words too, _yet another mage_ with that low sexy voice that went with the face but not the bigotry, “if he wasn't so obviously deadly, I might have punched him in the face.”

Hawke huffed out a laugh, “I would have paid to see that. Then I'd be forced to fight you. Right, nevermind.”

Anders tipped his head all the way back so he could see Hawke, upside down. For Anders, that was his pivotal moment in Kirkwall, where his journey of pushing a giant boulder uphill became more of, well, pushing a boulder over level ground, “and then I met you.”

That was met with silence. When Hawke spoke again, his voice was calm but lacked inflection, “and then you met me.”

Anders always found Hawke's expression unreadable at the best of times, but upside down it was impossible to tell if that was a frown or a smirk, “that's what I said. What's wrong?”

His mage didn't even think about what he said. Of course not – Anders could be extremely sharp in certain matters and completely dense in others, “I've wanted you from the very moment I saw you.”

“And now you have me,” Anders pulled him down, placing his dripping wet hands over Hawke's dark beard, and met him in an awkward kiss, nose to chin.

 _But for how long?_ Hawke never expected things to be easy or anything to go his way. It took him three years of pursuing Anders before he was able to call him his.

If Anders knew the extent of Hawke's love, he would probably run. He knew the man well enough to know that Anders wanted freedom above all else, and when Hawke said that he'd lock the mage up to keep him safe from templars, he rather meant it. Hawke was very careful with his words; he didn't want to come off as needy or clingy, even though that was exactly how he felt.

Anders would want for nothing – material or excitement – because he was willing and capable of providing all of it. Even if Anders wanted someone else, as long as it was within the confines of their relationship, and it was only just sex, he could tolerate it.

Beneath him, Anders broke into a fit of giggles. He pushed Hawke away, rubbing at his nose, “your beard is tickling me.”

“Maybe I should get rid of it,” he tugged at his beard. His hair was better groomed than it used to be, but it wasn't much of an improvement over his old coif, sticking out in all directions and hacked short with a dagger when he arrived in Kirkwall. There were some things that even a hightown hairdresser couldn't fix.

It was no surprise that Anders noticed Fenris first, the way Hawke looked like a refugee from head to toe in ratty armour.

“I love your beard,” Anders chattered on, still looking at Hawke upside down, “it's ... majestic.”

“Liar,” Hawke had to laugh. That was Anders fishing for a piece of flattery to fit him, and Hawke had heard enough of that to know it by ear. He leaned down to lay a kiss on Anders' forehead before pushing himself away, “I'll give you some privacy.”

Words came easily for Anders, whether it was written in his manifesto or declaring his undying love. Hawke envied him that. Hawke was good at levity, turning everything into jokes that only very rarely fell flat. About himself he gave away very little, and perhaps that was why him and Varric got along so well - a couple of codependent pathological liars enabling each other over ale.

It took one to know one. Anders made a habit of it as well, but they were all lies about himself. He lied about the big scar on his chest where the wound really should have killed him, about staying at the clinic overnight when he wasn't even there, about loving all the little flaws that made up Hawke and calling them perfect.

Even if Anders didn't remember the events of the night before, he agreed to fantasizing about the elf readily enough. Perhaps he could use that – take that fantasy and turn it around so that Anders would never want to pursue anything with Fenris, not ever. He was quite sure that after last night, Fenris wouldn't even be able to look at Anders, let alone talk to the mage, so he was no longer a threat.

With the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind, Hawke stripped off his clothes and sat back against the headboard.

When Anders emerged from the bathroom, droplets of water still on his chest – he always missed that spot, Hawke mused – and drying his hair, he spotted Hawke nude on the bed, and made his way to it. He climbed on by the foot board, like a cat, never using the side of a bed like a normal person, and came to rest straddling Hawke's thighs.

Hawke pulled him down, seeking gentle, barely there presses of lips. Moving downwards and holding Anders with his palms on the mage's lower back, he licked up the droplets of water on his chest, laving the line between his pectorals, where he used to be able to count the ribs.

“I'm going to need another bath,” Hawke could feel them both hardening between their bodies, hot and moistened with the kind of moisture that added to friction as Anders grounded down onto him.

“You can heat up the one that's already in there,” Hawke kissed a trail up Anders' chest, running the flat of his tongue over a nipple to earn him a moan from above. He knew Anders' body like a road map that he had studied, all the secret places that made him moan and stutter, and Anders responded to Hawke's every touch with his whole body, rewarding him with breathless sighs and involuntary rutting of his hips.

He knew Anders loved this, mornings where he woke with a headache and Hawke catered to his every need, ending his ministrations with tender love making, face to face. Anders saw it as a rare treat where they acted like a normal couple for once; Hawke did it to spare Anders from any discomfort at the risk of boring his mage.

When Anders grasped him, lining them up and Hawke sunk into him, holding each other, eyes open and lucid, those were the times that Anders loved most. Hawke regarding him with unabashed adoration, Anders rode and grounded with abandon, mouth open and eyes meeting, taking in the love he never heard said aloud. In those moments, they could just be two people so in love that they both owned, and were a part of, each other.

All the other times, ones with props and ropes and Hawke's need for more excitement, they were still enjoyable because _his_ Garrett was a part of it, but nothing was better than these lazy mornings.

Meanwhile, Hawke kept introducing new things to keep Anders interested, playing games and adding controlled danger in the bedroom in the hopes that Anders would stop going out and endangering himself in the real world. It never worked, but that didn't mean he stopped trying.

“Let's play a game,” Hawke said, later, when they were lying side by side, with Anders' head buried in Hawke's chest in an attempt to stay in bed and sleep all day.

He was already thinking 'not again' as the blindfold came down over his eyes and was quickly tied into place. He sighed, but Hawke only took that as slight tiredness on his part, “what kind of a game?”

“Let's pretend that I'm someone else,” Hawke rolled Anders on to his stomach, and began the slow process of tying his arms together across his back, one arm placed above the other for comfort. “Like Fenris.”

“What? Why?” Anders thought of pulling the blindfold off, but it was a little late now, with his arms immobile but for the tips of his fingers. “Why would I want to fantasize about someone who can kill me with his bare hands?”

“Because you think he's pretty, and I promise not to rip your heart out,” and Hawke pulled Anders up to rest on his knees, running his hands over the curve of that perfect arse.  
  
“That's no reason to – oh fuck!” If he had any objections, they were quickly obliterated as Hawke spread his cheeks wide and dipped his tongue inside Anders without warning, over-sensitive and slick with seed. He was always more sensitive after the first round, and Hawke always took full advantage.

Hawke kept up the attack for a few minutes, moving his hands down and under, cupping Anders with his palm. When he thought Anders had about enough for now, he kissed up the base of the spine, stopping just short of his bound hands, “no reason to what?”

Anders tried hard to remember where that conversation followed, but all he could come up with was, “well, Fenris wouldn't do that!”

“What, this?” And Hawke swiped his tongue from the bottom of Ander's sac all the way up to to the top of his cleft, supporting the mage with hands holding onto the backs of his knees to prevent them from buckling.

“Yes, that,” Anders turned his head, and spoke in the general direction of Hawke in spite of the blindfold over his eyes, “and not to diss the beard or anything, but it kind of gives you away.”

“Fine, fine. No kissing. Of any kind,” he laughed softly as Anders let out a disappointed whine, and kissed a line down the back of one thigh in parting, “I'm not saying I won't do it again later.”

There was one thing they haven't tried, and Hawke always wanted to, if only just to expand their repertoire of salves in the bedroom. Now was the perfect time. He got up off the bed to rummage in their travelling pack for it, “what are you doing?”

Hawke climbed back on the bed, pulling the seal off the top of the potion with his teeth, “I promise you'll like it?”

“Mmm. Famous last words,” then Hawke wrapped a tingling hand around his cock, and Anders forgot his ability to speak. Hawke smoothed the potion over him, under the sac and inside, then fingers dragging down the backs of his thighs, drawing lines buzzing with arcane power.

“You do like it,” Hawke took in Anders' tense muscles and what little expression he was able to catch below the blindfold, and ducked down for a kiss. “That's the last kiss you get for a while. Now, when I touch you again, call me Fenris.”

“Yes ... Fenris,” Anders managed, half-heartedly. If Hawke asked him to call him Cullen, or even Meredith, Anders would have said yes. _It probably would have made more sense as a fantasy too, and Hawke could lick it all off._

Hawke covered his hands in lyrium and rubbed it everywhere, reaching around to get dots of it on his nipples, then finally taking the last of it and poured it over his own cock. He didn't want this to be gentle, but he was never going to actually damage Anders, so more lubrication was better.

Without any more preparation, he pushed into Anders to the hilt, slapping his pelvis on Anders hard enough to shake the bed. Anders screamed, so loud that the servants probably heard him, but they were used to loud noises coming out of their bedroom by now and not likely to investigate.

He pulled Anders up by the hips, digging his fingers into the skin, leaving red marks that would turn to bruises, and slammed into him hard, over and over again without pause. At times he hadn't been the most gentle of lovers, but he had never went out of his way to cause pain. Until now.

It was all Anders could do to hold on, pressing his chest down into the mattress as the room filled with the sounds of skin slapping against skin, and distantly, his own hoarse cries, mixed with high pitch screams, but he never asked Hawke – no, Fenris, it was a game – to stop.

The position was wonderful. His sweet spot was being hit almost full-on with every stroke, and since Hawke – Fenris – was not being gentle about it, holding Anders up and locking him in place, he had no choice but to ride the experience, the twin sensations of being doused with lyrium, a buzzing in the edge of his mind, soft tingle on his skin, spread of warmth where it was inside him, as well as being fucked into the mattress non-stop, was carrying him to the edge and holding him there.

He wanted to tell _Fenris_ to touch him, but they never figured out that part of the rules. Was he allowed to ask? Was _Fenris_ taking him by force, which was why he was being used so roughly? Then a hand slipped over the slick lyrium on his hip, that iron-clad grip limited to only one side, and a hand wrapped around his erection and Anders didn't want to think anymore, and just to allow that hand to guide him where he was to go.

Anders could feel the pressure building, and he wanted to push back, even though he was probably getting as much and as hard as physically possible, the grip on his hip making it impossible to move. Then that hand slipped, grabbed the base of his cock, and squeezed, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough for the pressure to back off. _Fenris'_ hand was back on his hip, and Anders could imagine it, dark and thin, lined with lyrium that he could feel thrumming along his senses, a stark contrast to the colour of his thighs.

“Fenris...” he whined, not quite knowing what he was asking for or what was allowed. His restraints, the ropes – wound around his ankles, or his wrists, or all over him knotted in diamond patterns – felt confining and stifling, whereas they usualy felt like protection, an embrace.

No voice answered him, just fingers brushing against his skin, gripping his hips, and the endless bouts of being taken. It felt like it went on forever, though it couldn't have been that long, no one could last forever, but it was beginning to hurt and he was pleading for release and touch, then finally, when the pain was so acute he couldn't stop his words or his tears, “please, Fenris, please stop – I can't, it hurts so much -”

Then it did stop, the hands holding him letting go suddenly, and he had no strength left in his legs to remain in his position. Anders' knees buckled and he toppled down onto the bed, his softened cock slapped onto the mattress, and though that didn't hurt, his entire backside was on fire and stinging.

He never used to struggle before, but Anders was panicking now, trying to pull his arms out of the restraints that were tight and wound all over his arms and impossible to get out of, and that only made him panic more as the feeling of being helpless and bound and hurt surrounded him.

The knots were quickly untied and loosened enough that he was able to pull himself free, and Anders curled into a ball on his side instinctively, wrapping his arms around his knees. The blindfold was next, loosened and dropped away from his tangled hair, matted down with sweat and still moist from the bath he had earlier. An arm slipped under his neck, and another over him, and he flinched, holding himself tighter to get away.

“Fuck. I'm so sorry,” then he remembered, _Hawke,_ and soft kisses were pressed into the back of his neck, warm breath murmuring apologies. “I got carried away. I'm so sorry.”

Only then did Anders notice that he was quietly sobbing, his tears soaking into the sheets. He turned himself around, pushing a little off the mattress so as not to rub his bottom against it, and buried his face in Hawke's chest, feeling the beard with his forehead. He didn't mind the pain, not so much, sometimes in the games they played there was pain, but Hawke was always there and so no matter what was done to his body, he was safe. That wasn't Hawke.

His rope harness that he wore under his clothes nearly everyday, wrapped tight enough to remind him of his love with each step he took, was protection. The blindfold that covered his eyes heightened all other sensations. Hawke made confinement into a cocoon that Anders related with warmth and love, so much so that on days without it in the clinic he felt naked and hurried home afterwards into his lover's arms.

This was the first time that illusion was broken, and the control over him felt suffocating.

Anders was suddenly filled with a dread so heavy he wanted – no, needed – to get away.

“Anders?” Garrett held on to one of his hands as he pushed off from the man, with eyes so naked with worry that Anders had to stop and stare. He reminded himself, _I am loved_ , _he is safety,_ and he stopped trying to leave. Where would he go, anyhow? This was his home. He cast a minor healing spell, easing the bruising and the scratches, the rope burns and the cut on his lip from biting on it too hard.

Hawke threw his arms around him, and Anders melted into the embrace. It was where he belonged, with his Garrett and his overbearing love, who would never, ever harm him, “I'm fine, love.”

Anders, with his chin over Hawke's shoulder, was too close to see the faint smile Hawke had on when he spoke these words, “you know I'll never do anything to hurt you, right?”

“I know,” said Anders, as Hawke mouthed at his neck, making it hard to think. “Stop that. The last thing you need is lyrium addiction.”

Hawke picked him up then, and Anders held on, smiling nervously. He wasn't a small man, and Hawke wasn't much bigger than he was, but Garrett always picked him up as though he weighed nothing, “well, let's have that bath then. We're both covered in poison.”

They needed two baths, one to get all that lyrium off and another just to relax in, Hawke massaging the soreness out of Anders' shoulders and back. As Hawke sluiced off the shampoo from Anders' hair, Anders remembered something, “you should take a bottle of that hangover cure to Fenris.”

“I'll do that later,” Hawke pursed his lips to keep the sneer out of his voice, “always the healer, huh.”

“That and I know how much it hurts. That raspberry stuff is deadly,” Anders rubbed at his forehead as though in remembrance. The headache was completely gone now, “I will never let you talk me into that again.”

Hawke took Anders' fingers off his temples and replace them with his own, rubbing in soothing circles, “what, the roleplaying?”

“No, the crazy Orlesian brandy. If the Divine drinks that stuff it explains why the Chantry is completely brainless.”

Hawke's hands moved down to Anders' shoulders, turning him slightly so he can look at his mage, “you mean you'll let me pretend to be Fenris again?”

“If you want to, love. I still don't know why you'd want to,” Anders answered honestly. He didn't mind the occasional rough sex, especially not when it got him special treatment afterwards, like shared baths and massages.

Hawke kept one arm around Anders' shoulder, pulling him closer in the water. _Well, that did not work out quite the way I wanted it to,_ he thought, but Hawke was not one to give up when his plans did not reach their desired conclusion. It just meant that he had to change tactics.

The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt his mage again. That was difficult, but necessary, and if Anders showed any sign of repulsion the next time he saw Fenris, it would have been worth it.

It used to be so natural, the mage and the ex-slave's hostility towards one another. Now that they've come to an understanding on their own, it was up to Hawke to engineer something.

Perhaps he would get an idea after he checked on Fenris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I work on this prompt, the more plot I come up with. I'm just not very good at the whole short and one scene pwp thing.
> 
> I kept thinking: Okay, Anders could go around not noticing who is in bed with him with blindfolds, but Justice has eyes on the back of his head. So, cue a bottle of lyrium potion to confuse the heck out of our fade spirit.
> 
> Theme song: [Until We Bleed](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phbChRO51x4)


	5. Diurnal Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris fights to stay awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't look it up: diurnal means 'happening by day,' or simply the opposite to 'nocturnal.'

Fenris' eyes were bloodshot. He was so tired, he was just barely staying awake.

He had always had trouble sleeping. When he was a slave, his old master and his apprentices used sleep deprivation as a form of torture, waiting until he was asleep before shaking him again, rousing him for the most mundane of tasks from getting water from the well to removing nightsoil from their bedrooms.

When he was on the run, finally away from Tevinter, in the jungles of Seheron, he slept well for a while. The people who took him in were rebels, and they saw him as one of their own. Being guarded in his sleep was a luxury that he hadn't been able to afford since.

Hightown was so quiet at night, and built of echoing dwarven stone, that every little bit of noise seemed cause for alarm. His mansion wasn't soundproof, not in the least, with the holes in its roof and glass gone from the windows since he moved in, everything falling into disrepair. He could hear the skimishes taking place between the city guard and the gangs at night, and when Hawke came to visit, Fenris could hear the man coming from the moment he left his own front door.

After trying to stay up all night and a painful, head-splitting morning hangover, he thought about giving it up for a lost cause and letting his mind rest.

Every time he closed his eyes, the vision of Anders greeted him, but the red lines on him were no longer rope, but pulsing lines of blood, and his eyes were open and staring hungrily at Fenris. Hawke was not holding on to the mage in these visions, but a distant figure, leaning on a door frame sniggering at them. There was something strange about his eyes, coloured a deep red and without whites, like a rabbit's.

Each time he nodded off the dream progressed little by little, Anders crawling off the chair he was in, on all fours, and the last time the mage had one hand on Fenris' knee.

He was afraid of closing his eyes again, but not sleeping wasn't an option. Fenris hoped that if he stayed awake long enough, his sleep would be dreamless when it came.

“Fenris?”

His head snapped up at the voice. Anders, wearing his patchwork coat with its feathered pauldrons, sitting at the edge of his bed. Fenris checked for signs of the fade; it was night time, and his surroundings were familiar down to the winestains on the walls and the rotted corner of the carpet where water leaked from the roof.

When he looked up, he saw familiar stars. Fenris growled out, “what are you doing here, mage?”

“That's ... not what you really wanted to say, is it?” Anders inched closer, leaning on one hand to stretch his body along the bed, over Fenris. “I brought you a potion for your headache.”

Fenris looked around, searching, “where's Hawke?”

“He's home,” Anders unclasped the chain holding his pauldrons together, letting it drop over the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Fenris tried to move his arms, but they were stuck to his sides. His head still hurt, as it had been hurting all day, with the sun coming right through the holes in his roof making it worse. Still, it was rather strange that he couldn't move, like those moments before waking where his mind was lucid but his body remained in slumber.

“He sent me to make you feel better,” Anders divested the rest of his coat, and he wore silk underneath, dark sapphire blue, subtly lit by the fire from the hearth, black drawstring pants, and some time during his undressing his boots had disappeared. “So I'm going to make you feel better.”

Fenris wanted to tell the mage to leave him alone, but everything felt so real, and it couldn't have been, like dreams painted on reality, that he stayed his tongue. The words were familiar, the same that he heard in the clinic from the mage, spoken to himself and many others.

Anders pulled the stopper off the potion and put it to his mouth. Before Fenris could protest, Anders' lips were on his own, and cool, familiar elfroot potion flowed into his mouth, a hand massaging his throat forcing him to swallow.

His instinct told him to close his eyes, but Fenris had a feeling that if he did, Anders might disappear, the way that people vanished as soon as one turned around in dreams.

“Mmm. Want more?” Anders climbed over him, cat-like, hands flat on Fenris' chest. Fenris shook his head. Anders stroked his cheek, running his elegant fingers through white hair, “but you don't look better.”

“You are not real,” but even in real life Anders had given him looks like that, full of concern and a sort of nurturing love that he gave any child that wound up in his clinic with a broken bone.

Anders had never kissed him in his fantasies before.

He had one memory of Anders' face close to his own, so close he could have moved half an inch and kissed him if he so wished. It was one of his near death infections, and the mage was probably checking his temperature, touching his forehead to Fenris', then making that exasperated face with the pursed lips as though leaving a wound to fester was a crime akin to skipping dinner.

“I can be,” he smiled reassuringly, warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners, “all you have to do is ask Hawke.”

_Fenris is very pretty, isn't he?_

_Yes, Hawke._

Fenris recalled that anger when he realized the extent of the control Hawke had over the mage. The invisible bonds over his limbs disappeared, and he raised himself up to face Anders, “you're not a slave! You are free to make your own decisions!”

“Am I?” Anders pulled on the laces of his collar, showing him the top loop of the rope, but it wasn't a rope anymore – it was a thick, raised mark on his skin, blood red and pulsing.

The shirt was quickly pulled over his head, revealing the rest of the lines. One thick trunk ran down the sternum, parting in a 'V' below the navel; branches ran off from the trunk, going of to the sides to meet behind his back where Fenris couldn't see. It pulsed and glowed, in a steady rhythm that he assumed to be a heartbeat.

“Do you understand?” Anders pulled at the drawstring on his pants, and instead of moving them down, they faded into thin air, leaving him nude but for the red pattern on his skin. “Hawke is the blood in my veins.”

“It is all in your head, Anders,” Fenris pushed his blankets aside, revealing his own white lines of lyrium. They stood out on his dark skin just as well as the blood red lines did on Anders' paleness. “I left Danarius, and yet I live.”

Anders' eyes were accusatory, and that came out of his memories too, over something minor like limping out of the clinic while he was still recovering, “what happened when he came back for you, Fenris? Were you truly free?”

Fenris still had nightmares of that day, checking for blood on his hands on waking. The Fog Warriors in Seheron had taken him in and treated him as one of their own; when Danarius came for him, and they refused to give him up, his old master asked him to kill them. He never thought to disobey, “no. I wasn't free. It took time and distance, and even now I am not entirely certain what would happen if I were to see him again.”

“He loved you. That's the bond you share. Don't you see that Hawke loves me?” Anders smiled warmly, a mirror of the one he saw the night before in front of the fire, Hawke only needing to signal once to prevent an argument.

“That is not love,” what they had, it evoked what he used to feel for Danarius. The word 'love' could not have measured it.

The sun rose and set in his eyes; Danarius was everything. Fenris' mood hung on all that his master did, a small single word of praise could induce euphoria while a narrowing of his eyes in consternation could send him into a bout of depression so dark he wished he was dead. His entire life depended his master's whims – like a young child to its mother, Fenris had no will of his own.

When his master was wounded, he felt pain. When his master was happy, so was he. There was no boundary between them as he was an extension of his master. If it wasn't for that first accident where he was left behind, he never would have thought of escaping. It would have been like a limb choosing to leave a body on its own.

He had a different kind of freedom within the confines of slavery. When one was a slave, obedience brought happiness.

“And what would you know of love, Fenris?” Anders reached out his hand and cupped Fenris' cheek.

Fenris leaned into the touch, and raised his own hand to put it over the mage's, “I know enough to know that ... I am a coward. For not saying anything to you. Now it is done. It is too late.”

“Idiot. Why do you say that it's too late?”

“You belong to Hawke,” Fenris shrugged, wide-eyed, “you believe that you love him.”

Anders looked at him sadly, “and you're just going to give up?”

“It isn't up to me to choose,” Fenris looked away, resigned. “You belong to another, and -”

“And you're still thinking like a slave. Let me tell you a secret,” Anders moved close to Fenris' ear and whispered, “it's only too late when one of us is dead.”

Fenris opened his eyes, and woke up.

Anders was gone, not having been there in the first place. The room was the same. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the broken windows, lighting up columns of dust motes. The sight of them brought another round of pounding redness behind his eyes.

It wasn't uncommon for him to dream of Anders, usually of false awakenings in the clinic to the scent of boiling elfroot. That was more like a vision, pieced together with words from snippets of conversion snatched from listening immobile in the clinic or from the Hanged Man.

He wondered if everyone was the same way; unable to create anything new, taking memories and changing and shaping them to form semi-prophetic dreams. _When one of us is dead._

Anders was overly dramatic even in his dreams. Hawke would never kill Anders, would he? Then again, when Fenris had finally escaped from Danarius, the bounty on his head quickly changed from 'bring him back alive' to 'bring back his dead body.' It became a matter of pride that Fenris was dead rather than for him to become someone else's property, or even just to belong to himself.

If he was to confront Anders, what then? If someone came to Danarius' mansion when he was still in Tevinter and offered to rescue Fenris from his life of slavery, he would have killed them. It was a complete fluke that he escaped for the first time to taste freedom. But the mage hadn't always been a slave and he didn't even know he was a slave. Perhaps if he spoke to Anders, he could talk some sense into him.

Fenris groaned. They had never conversed with each other before. If he tried to talk to Anders about Hawke, the mage would probably assume that Fenris was jealous of their relationship and that he was in love with Hawke.

It was madness, the 'love' between those two. Fenris had no cure for it. His headache intensified just thinking about them, and he had to close his eyes again.

He opened them in Hawke's study, sitting in that same armchair that faced the door, Anders closing in, one hand on Fenris' knee, kneeling between his legs.

Fenris' immediate reaction was to get up. He placed his hands on top of the arm rests and pushed.

“Sit down, Fenris,” Hawke said from his vantage point by the door, eyes glowing a deep red. The voice was deeper, older. _Danarius._

 _You have no power over me. Not anymore._ Fenris thought, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. He had no voice. He sat down automatically, and saw that his lyrium markings were not branded into him, but as glowing white 'rope' that bound him to the chair, holding him from the neck down.

“Do make him feel better, Anders,” Hawke's voice again, the same words he had used once dropping Fenris off, leaving him in Anders' care for a festering limb that the mage threatened to amputate. _So help me Fenris, next time you leave a wound like that I'll just cut it off._

“Yes, Hawke,” Anders smiled, as if following Hawke's orders brought the greatest of joys.

Anders mouthed at his crotch through the thin leggings, his erection outlined clearly against tight leather. Fenris could feel warmth and pressure on his member but no contact or friction, just the presence of Anders, hands coming up to touch his sides, Anders' head resting on his thigh.

“You should learn to be a bit more honest, Fenris,” Hawke made a gesture with one hand, and Fenris' tights faded away, leaving him nude but still bound, unable to move an inch.

Anders licked his lips, pink tongue darting out to lave at the base of his cock, running it up to the tip. He met Fenris' eyes, warm but empty of thought, like the Tranquil that stalked the Gallows courtyard.

“No!” Fenris shouted, and the sound of his own voice woke him.

Bloody nightmares, made of all the things that Hawke fed his mind. He was certain that Hawke had no overarching plan with his display of Anders before, but now he wasn't so sure. It had only been less than a day, and his innocent infatuation had turned into full blown obsession.

Fenris reached down under the covers and took himself in hand, hard and aching. Over the past three years, he had gone from sleeping with his armour on to sleeping in nothing at all. With his phasing abilities, one did not provide more protection than the other, and in the beginning, though he was loath to admit it, he wore it because he missed Danarius. It was the only thing his old master gave him that was his alone, made to his size and a personal gift.

It was still the only set of armour he owned, supple leather that moved with him like a comfortable second skin, but he no longer felt the need to sleep in it.

He thought of Anders, mouth open in ecstasy, calling his name, and his fingers were thin like Fenris' own. Callouses on the inside much like his, holding a staff instead of a sword, a rough patch brushing over the ridge of his cock, thumb touching the slit to bring the precome downwards to smooth over velvety skin.

Twisting his hand loosely over the top and down, he brought himself close to the brink and moved it down again over less sensitive places, making it last.

 _Imagine that it's Fenris fucking your arse, and it's his hand on your cock._ He could see Anders, straddling his lap, riding him while Fenris' hand was not on his own body but Anders', free of that wicked contraption of knots and ties, breath coming out in needy little huffs and whimpers. _That's so good, Fenris ..._

 _Yes, Fenris, yes!_ Anders biting his lip, moving faster and milking him, hands holding on to Fenris' shoulders for support. He came arching his back, mouth wide open and arms stretched taut, “Anders!”

Fenris rolled on to his side, alone, seed cooling on his stomach sticking to the sheets. His innocent memories of the mage had become tainted with desire. He opened his eyes to a dark room, moonless, the fire in his hearth burned down to embers while he slept and what little warmth there was had escaped.

A shadow peeled itself off the wall and approached in the near darkness. Fenris reached for his sword, always at the ready by the side of his bed.

“It's just me.”

Last week, perhaps, the presence of Hawke in his mansion would have caused no alarm. Fenris was beginning to see through all the lies, the way the rogue only announced his presence with creaks of the door and loud clattering steps on the stone approaching his home to instill a false sense of security.

Fenris could have heard a mabari padding from Hawke's mansion to his. He had not heard the door open at all, “what do you want?”

Hawke tossed something at him, a glass container glittering lightly in the dim light, and Fenris caught it without thinking, “Anders wanted me to bring you a hangover cure.”

Fenris placed it on the bed and pulled up the sheets to cover himself, though it was dark enough that even Hawke could hardly have been able to see anything.

“It's not poisoned. You're my friend, whatever you may think of me,” Hawke laughed, cold and mirthless, “if I wanted you dead, I could have stabbed you when you had your eyes closed.”

Fenris unsealed the bottle and drank the potion, wincing at the taste. Anders always made the worst tasting potions, _you want something that doesn't taste terrible, try accepting magical healing. Don't make that face at me you blighted elf._

“Tell your mage that he has my gratitude,” he wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand, holding out the empty glass bottle for Hawke.

“Just your gratitude?” Hawke didn't move to take it. “I've been on that wall for an hour. Are you ready to be honest with me?”

The first night time thugs began to clash with the city guard, swords ringing out in the distance. Fenris stared ahead of him, not blinking. Hawke knew. He had always known, of course, he had been watching Anders for years. Everything to do with Anders was of interest to him.

He wasn't embarrassed. Fenris lived in a slave compound where people slept in close quarters. Being caught pleasuring oneself was common, and often ignored, “you're reduced to peeping now?”

“He likes you, you know,” Hawke pulled up a chair, one Fenris always kept by the hearth where he drank alone. “He thinks you're gorgeous.”

“You can tell him that he's not that ugly either,” Fenris said, flippantly, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Tell him yourself.”

“I supposed you're saying that you'll allow me to speak to Anders without you to chaperone?”

“Anders,” Hawke said with obvious amusement, “what happened to 'abomination' and 'mage'?”

It was a losing hand; Fenris kept underestimating Hawke's ability to pick up on the most subtle of verbal hints, and overestimating how much he truly knew of the man, “I was introduced to the concept of manners some time in the past three years, Hawke. What's your point?”

“Good save,” Hawke grabbed a poker and pushed the embers around, adding a log of wood from the basket. “You can speak to Anders any time you want. He goes out everyday to run that clinic of his. Go on, go to darktown tomorrow and talk to him.”

He was so sure that Fenris wouldn't, and he was right. If Fenris showed up in the darktown clinic, Anders would only suspect his intentions, “and what purpose would that serve?”

“Nothing. He'll never leave me,” Hawke had the fire going now, the crackling sound of steam escaping from damp wood filled the room. He turned away from it, an outline of light behind him casting him entirely in shadow.

“People are not as predictable as you are led to believe,” Fenris said, though he wondered how predictable he himself had been, “I left Danarius.”

“Not by choice,” Hawke grinned, white teeth on shadow, and Fenris regretted ever having called the man a friend, let alone telling him all of his personal history, “how about this? You can do more than just talk. I'll let you have a go with him.”

If he had any doubt that Hawke treated Anders as nothing but a possession, that line just about cinched it, “what? Anders is not a slave you can lent out, Hawke.”

“He likes you,” Hawke shrugged, “he wants you. I have never denied him anything.”

That struck him nearly as hard as 'he hates you,' and while the other line Fenris had eventually accepted as a lie, the words that came from Hawke now made him feel hopeful, “why would he -”

“Not by the virtue of your spiky personality, that's for sure,” Hawke sniggered, and he hadn't heard many sounds as unkind, and Fenris was from Tevinter. “Look, don't take it too seriously. He's not asking you to marry him. It's just sex.”

After the display of last night, Fenris could almost believe that, “and what do you get out of this arrangement?”

“Anders will be happy with me for giving him something he wants,” Hawke spread his hands, “and I get to watch.”

Fenris was inexperienced with such things, but he was quite confident that intimacies between humans were not spectator acts, even though some things he witnessed in Tevinter showed him otherwise. The Tevinter Imperium most likely invented orgies. But even so, “and if this should happen, you wish to be present?”

“Absolutely. He'll want me to be a part of it.” Hawke was already starting for the door, self-satisfaction apparent in his words, “I'll leave you to think about it in detail. When I see you again I'll trust you to be honest for once.”

Fenris kept his eyes on Hawke's retreating figure; he knew better than to turn his back on this man now, not for a second, “I'll keep that in mind.”

He needed to speak to Anders, but not now, not when the mage didn't trust him. Perhaps after they established some sort of intimacy, crossing the line from acquaintance to bed mates, he could show Anders how to free himself the way Fenris had.

_I will be honest, Hawke. Just not with you._


	6. All In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris makes his decision; Hawke bets it all; Anders opens his eyes.

Fenris managed to stay away for an entire week.

Hawke cut off his visits completely, leaving Fenris to his habitual loneliness. It gave him too much time to think on how he had relied on the man for company and his lessons in reading for years, and of how little he was able to function on his own.

He pondered whether he had traded in one master for another, his reliance on having someone run his life for him too ingrained to change.

At first, he despaired. The empty hours were filled with wine, as much as was needed to drown out the dreams, simple, domestic ones of Anders sleeping in his bed filling the mansion with his warm presence that left him waking feeling more lonesome  than ever.

Then he saw the opportunity to cut the cord, this link he had between Hawke and himself, taking orders from the man on the battlefield, taking his advice and his guidance on their evenings drinking together. It was about time for Fenris to make his own decisions.

He attempted a visit to Anders in the clinic, but the man was so busy that he couldn't even get through the door. It was just as well; Fenris wasn't sure what he went down to speak to him about. A distant glimpse of the man sent him scurrying, blushing down to his toes. This too, seemed to have been a part of Hawke's plan, leaving Fenris no choice but to take up on his offer.

There was no avoiding this upcoming battle – either he was content to dream of Anders alone, or he could take a place in their bed for one night, and perhaps be rid of his obsession enough to save the mage. The moon was already high by the time he made his final decision, half full and hesitant, like himself.

Fenris picked up the potion bottle and took the short walk to the Hawke estate. Until he took care of this awkwardness, he couldn't look at the mage, let alone speak with him.

“Messere Fenris,” Bodahn shuffled his feet when he greeted him at the door, flustered, “I'm not certain that this is the best time -”

Fenris held out the potion bottle, “I'm only here to return this. It's ... urgent.”

Bodahn gave him a puzzled look, but he took the bottle and ushered Fenris to wait in the study. It was haunted for him now, the roaring fire and the ugly Tevinter statue above the hearth did nothing to chase away the ghosts. He paced, wearing a groove in the carpet in front of those accursed armchairs.

“Urgent, you say?” Hawke stood by the study door, his steps silent as ever. “Did you miss ... us?”

 _You know exactly how it has been,_ “you took your sweet time walking down the stairs.”

“I was busy,” Hawke clicked his tongue, tsking at him. “Will you be joining us?”

He could have just said no. Tell him that he wasn't interested, walk right by him and out through that door, trudge down to the Hanged Man to socialize with all the friends he had but never bothered with, instead of letting Hawke take over his life.

Instead, he heard himself saying, “yes.”

“Well, come on upstairs then,” Hawke turned and strolled off, beckoning at Fenris to follow.

“Now?” Fenris expected Hawke to set some sort of time for the near – or far – future, but not now. He was not prepared. But with his limited experience, there was no way for him to prepare. He remembered nothing before his brands, and there was no one afterwards

He could have, in hindsight, visited the Rose any time he so wished, but the idea of laying with a whore set his hair on end.

“No time like the present,” Hawke walked on ahead, “besides, you did kind of interrupt us anyway.”

Fenris considered telling Hawke of how he had never been with anyone before, and caught himself. It was hard to not think of the man as his friend. If he had told Hawke, then Fenris would have just added to the pile of information that could be used against him.

Before he could think about turning back or changing his mind, Hawke was pushing him into the bedroom, where the sight of the mage almost sent him back out the door.

Anders knelt on the bed, covered from head to toe in shimmering lines of lyrium. Some of it looked to be meticulously painted on, some smeared on thickly and rubbed in. His arms were bound behind his back, one forearm set above another, a black silk blindfold wrapped around his head over his eyes and ears. His back was to the door, but he seemed to be expecting them, as his head was turned towards them when he walked in.

Anders held himself off the mattress with some effort; his legs were not bound. Hawke closed the door behind them, with more force than was necessary, and Anders reacted with a shiver.

“Just one rule,” Hawke said quietly,  “you don't get to kiss him. Otherwise, do what you want.”

“How do I know -” _if this isn't some trick,_ but before he words came out of his mouth, the mage answered his question.

“Fenris?” Anders called, hoarse and needy, biting his lower lip. “Hurry up and touch me.”

His hands immediately went to the buckles of his armour, his gauntlets first, then the light breastplate and pauldrons. The rest of the coat was held together by nothing more than a few straps and belts, and that too joined his armour on the floor. His world narrowed down to Anders, blond hair flowing over his shoulders sticking to the lyrium applied there, arching his back and balancing himself on his knees.

Fenris climbed on the bed, settling on an empty spot behind Anders. When his hands touched that potion covered skin, the mage breathed out a sigh of relief, pushing back into him. His fingers obliterated the drawn lines, smoothing them into a silver shine. Hawke had said no kissing, but the lyrium prevented any kind of contact with his lips anyway.

His hands were shaking a little. He couldn't calm them; the fact that he was finally touching Anders, pads of his fingers running over taut muscle and smooth skin, made him so nervous that Fenris thought maybe he shouldn't have agreed to this after all. But the mage was so damned responsive, whining and whimpering at every little touch, that Fenris was glad to be giving something back.

All those little touches that Anders gave him, with his gentle hands and manners. Fenris wished to return that tenfold.

Hawke took a seat by one of the nightstands, where he could see them both, but Fenris was ready to forget his presence once he wrapped his arms around Anders. The mage trembled, leaning into the circle of his arms, touching his back to Fenris' chest.

Fenris wanted to kiss him so badly, but that could wait, until the blindfold came off and Anders chose to make that move himself. He ran his hand over Anders' chest, brushing over the pebble-hard nubs of his nipples.

“So good,” Anders leaned into Fenris' hands, seeking more contact. The lyrium probably tingled, the way it prickled in his own skin when he activated his brands. “More. Fenris, more please.”

He had sniped at Anders in the past for talking too much, but was never able to admit that he admired the mage's honesty and his ability to express himself. Anders was easier to read than anyone. He would have done very badly in Tevinter, where the vipers held court in the assembly of magisters.

Hawke was listening, otherwise he would have taken this opportunity to pour out his heart. But would he have been able to? Even so close to Anders, the man shaking in his arms, he knew he wasn't capable of personal words. Fenris was one to measure his words before he said them, even in jest. Baring his heart made one vulnerable, and he was used to keeping his guard up with everyone.

But words were not the only things that were honest. Anders had an honest body, responding to every touch, showing everything he felt. Fenris made up his mind then to do the same, letting his body handle the conversation for him.

He wasn't allowed to kiss the mage, but he could try to get as close as possible. Fenris twined his fingers into Anders' blond hair, revealing the nape of his neck, and he moved as close as he was able to without touching, breathing out a steady stream of air. He moved around Anders, shielding Hawke's view of the mage with himself, and blew lines of air along his collarbones, touching his forehead to a pulse point by his neck and directing air downwards.

Fenris took his time. Hawke never said there was a time limit. He treated this as though it would be their only chance, and it might very well be. He braced his hands on Anders' shoulders and moved down over his nipples, warm air tickling skin and cooling, with the tingly warmth of lyrium rushing back in. This close, he could see the gooseflesh on his skin.

Anders hadn't said anything in a while. His mouth was agape and he breathed heavily, and Fenris could feel his heartbeat under a thumb by his jugular. Anders looked as if he was more nervous than Fenris was, if not more so, the quivering in his limbs betraying something like excitement or – fear.

A closer examination of the lyrium slicked on Anders' skin confirmed his suspicions; it was lyrium, but thin, and where it was smeared it was mixed with cold sweat. Anders was terrified. But of what? Of Fenris? Try as he might, he could not fathom why the mage would be scared of him. Sure, they had their disagreements, and he had threatened him on multiple occasions, but it wasn't as though Anders was powerless to fight back if he so wished.

He glanced at Hawke, who stared at them with a smirk on his face. Hawke looked smug, and that could only mean one thing: whatever was happening right now, he had expected it.

Which really made him wonder about their bedroom games before Fenris even arrived.

Fenris grasped Anders' shoulders then, and pulled him into his arms, laying Anders' cheek over his heart. The smile on Hawke's face faded from his peripheral vision, and Fenris knew his actions were outside of the master plan.

And just maybe, he understood Hawke a little better. Anders leaning on him, vulnerable and open, brought about a natural reflex of protectiveness. He stroked a hand down the mage's spine, stilling the shivers and soothing him with the sound of his heartbeat, steady and calm.

There were hesitations and uncertainties of the entire evening, right up until this moment. What he had was infatuation, obsession perhaps, craving of the gentle touch that Anders at first forced upon him. Now he was sure that he never wanted to let Anders go – and it must have been what Hawke felt as well, the first time he held the mage in his arms.

Anders wasn't delicate; Fenris had seen the man in battle himself. Vengeance and Anders could have taken on all of their past foes on their own and emerge unscathed. But here, while he was willing, his strength and his sometimes blind ability to trust gave him an air of fragility. It was this willingness, bravery even, of allowing himself to love openly while Fenris did the opposite that drew him to the mage.

The madness Hawke must have had to live with everyday was the fear that Anders would be gone from his arms. He held the mage tighter, but not too tight. He didn't know how to put the feeling into words, but he held on, as though Anders was the most precious thing in the world.

Anders finally calmed down, the quivering gone from his limbs, and he raised his head hopefully, angling for a kiss that Fenris wasn't able to give. Then he lowered his chin again, as though he had foreseen the rejection. The simmering anger that Fenris stored in an endless well inside of himself boiled over for a brief moment, and he kept it down, clawing his hand into the mattress.

The Anders he knew, the one who couldn't keep his mouth shut about the plight of mages, was not here. Here, he kept his head down and played the obedient fuck toy, like a magister's body slave. He would make Hawke pay for this.

Meanwhile, the mage rutted gingerly against his thigh, little whimpers of want escaping his lips. Fenris placed his hands gently on Anders' chest then, and pushed him over on to his back. Anders immediately raised his legs, allowing Fenris to grab them and hook them over his shoulders.

Fenris reached for a pot of what he assumed was salve sitting on the nightstand, and it turned out to be something like lyrium potion mixed into warmth balm. He didn't bother questioning it, with Anders ready and willing and spread in front of him, elevating himself on bound arms.

Here was where his experience became purely spectator-based. He had seen two men together before, and he had a vague idea of what was to happen, but the rest had to depend on his instincts and all the faces Anders put on display.

He needn't have worried. As soon as he touched two fingers slicked with salve to Anders' entrance, the mage locked his ankles behind Fenris' neck and speared himself on to them, adjusting the angle of his hips by rolling his back over his bound arms. What little mobility he had, he used it to the fullest, pillowing himself on his forearms and rocking onto Fenris' fingers. Fenris let the mage pleasure himself on them, getting used to the feeling of the heat and tightness around his digits, imagining what it would be like on his cock, memorizing at which angle the mage writhed and called out.

“More,” Anders contracted around his fingers, and it was so intimate, not an observed act at all, something shared only between the two of them. There was reluctance in the sound, as though he wasn't sure if asking was allowed but the waiting was becoming too much, “more. I want your cock, Fenris ... please.”

If someone had told him four years ago that a mage would be begging in bed for him, Fenris would have laughed. And right now, he should have felt some gratification in meeting a mage that didn't simply take what he wanted, but all he could think of was how different Anders was, outside of Hawke's influence.

His fingers were withdrawn, Anders grasped him with his muscles and pleaded silently for him _not to leave_ but he opened and became receptive again as Fenris lined up his cock, nudging at Anders' hole. The mage let out a low whine, opening up and taking him, practically sucking him in the moment the width of the head was through, shuddering when Fenris pushed all the way in.

Fenris placed his weight on his knees, pushed Anders' legs back towards his body, bending him nearly double until only his shoulders were touching the bed, and began to thrust to the rhythm of his heartbeat. Anders was tight, hot, and smooth on the inside like the skin of his thighs, a snug ring around him, and Fenris had to draw on his warrior discipline to keep himself from coming right then and there.

Anders had no such restraint, but Fenris' grip kept him captive, his rocking movements, out of sync with Fenris', led nowhere as Fenris kept a slow pace, more for the sake of not ending things early than his overall pleasure.

At first there was a constant litany of 'more' and 'please' and 'faster,' the words so quiet amongst the invectives and shouts that they were barely understandable, but those soon ceased as Anders gave in to the pace Fenris had set; slow, untiring, and implacable.

“Oh fuck,” repeated ad infinitum, increasing in loudness and intensity, clued Fenris in to the fact that he was doing something right. He picked up the pace, not changing the angle or the pressure with which he was thrusting into the mage, but a simple addition of speed, with the same finesse he used to handle his blade.

The mage spasmed around him, as he went from his constant swearing to incoherent shouts, cock twitching and coming untouched on his stomach. His entire body tensed and then quickly relxed, giving in and letting the orgasm take him. Fenris thought he should stop, not wanting to cause pain to Anders during the brief period of oversensitivity, but the channel tightened, gripping him and refusing to let him leave.

“No way,” Anders sounded a little surprised once he was breathing regularly again, even though it had been a wild ride between short huffs and long breaths since Fenris entered him. “Don't stop, Fenris. Please don't stop.”

 _I have never denied him anything,_ Hawke told him, and Fenris understood why perfectly. Anders was impossible to say no to, and all he wanted now was to coax more of those sounds out of him, the pleas and even the swearing, eyes probably rolling to the back of his head if he could only see them.

What little tension he had earlier, the fear and the anticipation that was part of it, was gone now, replaced by complete abandonment. Anders rode the waves of pleasure slack jawed and relaxed. Fenris marvelled at when and how he earned such total trust, but the mage was gripping him again, cock filling up and hardening, twitching against the pool of seed on his stomach.

Fenris sped up, like he did before, precise and unrelenting. The endless string of blasphemy, ranging from the body parts of the Maker to simple three word questions on the nature of Andraste's parentage, and above all that tone of surprise, was a constant outpouring from the mage.

“What are you doing to me?” A coherent question slipped out, and Fenris wished he had the answer but truly, he had no idea. He was simply trying not to come with Anders' repeated clamping on him, muscles locking around Fenris like a vice, as Anders came again, shouting less creative swear words and adding to the pool of slick lyrium and semen on his abs. It gathered in his navel and ran off his side, and Fenris didn't need instruction this time. He kept going.

The third time Anders came, his cock sputtered, cum barely dribbling out to accompany his spasms, but the shouting was a wail, words failing to form in the broken syllables. The blindfold was soaked through, with sweat or tears, Fenris wasn't sure which, the moisture dulling the fabric's sheen.

“Oh, don't stop, please don't stop,” Anders pleaded as his name came back to him, and he held on to it as his life line to sanity, warmth flooding his limbs and the constant pounding on his sweet spot unhinging his awareness of who or where he was. Without his eyes or ears, all he was left was sensation on his skin and from the inside out. The cock inside of him pistoned on, becoming the center of his being, blocking out all thought.

He told Hawke that he was fine with the game again, but he hadn't expected the torturous ordeal it turned out to be. Everyday, all week – he was brought close and not allowed to come, he had clamps attached to his cock and his nipples, chains running from clamps to bedposts, forcing him to keep still and shake for fear of excruciating pain. He had begun to shake in fear whenever Hawke even suggested 'the game' by yesterday.

Then today, this, the loving embrace and being held as though he was truly cherished, and not a thing to be teased and toyed with, this unending, mind-numbing sweet pounding that he was given, his body buoyed by strong arms, not the tight grip that held him prisoner but a support allowing him to relax and let go. This was wonderful.

He promised himself that the next one would be the last one, he didn't dare to hope for more, but it went on and on, Hawke - _Fenris_ \- listening to his pleas and giving him exactly what he asked for. Then the next one did happen – beautiful, warm and contractions and almost too much sensation all over and love pouring into him – and he wanted more, thirsty for each affirmation that Hawke loved him, showing it to him each time he was taken so gently with motions that concentrated on giving.

He lost count of the number of times he came, body slanted, slick of his own making running down the groove of his sternum tickling his neck on the way down. He was dry by now, nothing left in his body to splatter along his chest, but the waves of orgasms came and went nonetheless, the spasms jolted out every single time _Fenris_ ' cock pistoned into him.

“I'm going to die,” and his voice echoed in his head, too loud, the rubber plugs in his ears sending the sound back through his jaws. He babbled between his sounds of ecstasy, “I'm dead. I'm dead and I'm in the golden city.”

The body pressed close to his arse shook, laughing probably, but whether it was laughing at him or with him was irrelevant since it was still moving, which really went to prove his point that he was dead and in the fade, where the fantasy of a Garrett Hawke who listened to his pleas and followed them lived.

“Enough – I can't – oh fuck,” Anders could feel himself drifting in and out of consciousness, the usual post-coital exhaustion hitting him harder than as was wonted, but it still felt so good and he was so treasured by the arms holding him that he wanted it to go on.

While his mind wanted forever, his body was only able to take so much, and the words slurred into more swearing as the cock inside him hardened even more and filled him, the constant and predictable strokes turning irregular and drawing out his last orgasm as _Fenris_ came inside of him. He wished he could see, then, see the look in his lover's eyes as he took his pleasure.

His legs were spread wider and left to rest on his sides, and _Fenris_ ' arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him up to straddle him, still linked, but there was no strength anywhere in him, so Anders nuzzled into the crook of his lover's neck, half collapsing on his chest. He giggled, sated and tired and only a little sore.

 _Fenris_ was pulling on the knots on his ropes, pins and needles rushing into his fingertips as his wrists were freed, and he wrapped his arms around his man. When his hands connected on the other side, on _Fenris_ ' back, he knew that something didn't feel right, but he couldn't put his finger on it, and he was too tired to try.

With his added mobility, he grabbed the face close to his own and mauled him with his lips, finding an open, inviting mouth and plunging his tongue inside to tangle with his lovers'. The sense of wrongness sharpened, jogging him out of his blissed out state.

“Fenris?” He heard himself saying, and a rumble in the chest he was pressed against alerted him to speech but not the words that came from it. He raised one hand and reached for the ties of his blindfold. He never untied his own blindfold; it was one of the unwritten rules.

There was a first time for everything.

Hands batted his fingers aside, and the blindfold was quickly ripped away, rough and uncaring of the strands of blond hair caught in them, the rubber plugs falling out without the cloth to hold them. But Fenris – he could see that it was Fenris now, the evidence of his eyes impossible to deny – was still holding him by the waist, so that meant -

\- Hawke picked him up bodily under his arms, pulling him away from Fenris, still connected, cock spent but hard inside of him, and flung him on to the carpet in front of the fireplace like a rag doll. He landed on his side, pain flaring up his leg where it hit bare stone instead of soft rug, looking up to meet Hawke's crazed eyes.

He looked angry. Then Anders thought, _he should be angry, I was just with someone else._ Anders could not string the details together, the fantasies and reality and facts bunching all jumbled up and confused, but underneath it all, that love he felt from the arms that held him, the pleasure he shared with Fenris, the real Fenris, not the made-up one with the violent tempers and the need to hurt but the one who rocked into him gently and read his expressions to give him what he wanted.

Fenris loved him. It stood out in his mind and made everything even more confusing than ever.

“You little whore,” Hawke, towering over him, hands coming down to cage him against the floor, eyes bloodshot and a little mad. He saw a flash of motion and felt a stinging pain on his cheek, Hawke slapping him so hard his teeth bit into the side of his mouth and he tasted copper. It was real pain, and for once he was afraid. With fear and the feeling of real threat on his life came Justice, senses dulled by the lyrium but still wanting to break through to defend his host.

Then that hand was stroking his cheek and Hawke was gentle again and he didn't know what to think.

“I'm sorry ...” he started to say, not knowing what he was sorry for, aside from that detail where he was just in bed with Fenris and calling out his name as he came over and over again.

“Are you now?” Hawke's hand moved down to Anders' throat, where his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed over the strange fear of having his vulnerable place touched by someone he wasn't sure if he trusted anymore, still tasting blood in his mouth. “Here I was thinking I'd give you a nice surprise, but guess what? You can't even tell who's fucking you. So much for love.”

Anders was at a loss for either actions or words. He loved Hawke. He had spent three years aching for the man, and they spent the past year together as lovers. Anders was happy. At least he thought he was happy. He fell in love with the thoughtful man who brought him lunches and took time to talk to him and solved his problems and chased away the coterie. He moved in with the gentle lover who held him every night while he slept.

Who was this man with his hand on Anders' throat and death in his eyes? A better question: who exactly was he in love with?

“Don't listen to him, Anders. He never bothered telling me that you didn't know about this little plan,” the deep, throaty bass of Fenris' voice reverberated from the direction of the bed, and they both reacted as though they only just remembered that he was there. Fenris had his leggings on already, and he strapped on the rest of his armour quickly. He wasn't looking at Anders, and the mage hadn't seen him this angry since they faced Hadriana, “you bastard. You set us up.”

“Get out, Fenris. This is between Anders and I,” the grip on his throat tightened, probably just an angry reflex with no regard to Anders' discomfort. The idea that Hawke would just disregard him was worse than the thought of him intentionally harming him. “It's none of your business.”

“I beg to differ,” Fenris glowed, lyrium ghost body wrapped in spikes and tight leather, “if you wish to keep your heart inside of your body, let go of Anders.”

Hawke ignored the threat, but he loosened his hold on Anders' neck. Anders opened his mouth to breathe, and Hawke came down with a crushing kiss.

It was so familiar and the lips so soft and yielding on his own that Anders kissed back, his habit to simply please Hawke overriding his better judgement. He closed his eyes and allowed his heart to fool him, if only for a little longer.

Hawke raised his head away from Anders long enough to glare at Fenris, “leave. We're busy.”

Fenris snarled, growling deep in his throat, but Anders was looking at Hawke and not at him, and he was back to being the third party, an unwanted outsider. Anders only turned to look once his back was turned, feeling an alarming twinge in his chest as the door slammed behind him. Hawke grabbed his chin right away, mouth covering his in an instant.

There was nothing gentle about him now, and Anders wasn't sure why he ever thought so. His hold was like steel; the only time he wasn't being suffocated in its grip was when he held himself close and made himself as small as possible, leaving enough room in Hawke's hold to breathe. The little concessions he gave, coming home earlier from the clinic, pushing his boundaries for Hawke's sake, they made him smaller each time until there was no Anders with his wilfulness and his oppositional nature left to wonder why he was being treated as a pet.

“Let me go,” he spoke against the lips on his, mere whispers, and he noticed with some dread that even as he wanted to he made no move to push the man off.

“What did you say?” Hawke stared at him, too close to focus on, too far to feel the trembling in his lips.

“I said let me go,” Anders said quietly, not able to meet Hawke's eyes. “Please.”

“No,” the arms caging him gripped his wrists, pulling them above his head. “Where will you go? Are you leaving with Fenris? Is that it?”

“No! I just,” Anders didn't struggle, so used to the tight holds and pins already that the confinement felt normal, “I just need time to think.”

“Nonsense, you're feeling a little guilty, that's all, aren't you?” Hawke used his cloying, sweet tones, all soft tenor designed to calm. Anders shook his head, and Hawke ignored him and kept speaking, one hand holding on to Anders' wrists and another moving down to untie the laces of his breeches, “don't worry. I'll fuck you until you forget all about him.”

“No -” he didn't want to forget being treated so lovingly, even if it wasn't by Hawke. Hawke's mouth was on his again, swallowing his protests, and he began pressing his cock into Anders where he was still slick from Fenris' seed and balm, and his body offered no resistance.

If he had resisted and held himself tightly to prevent entry, Hawke would probably have forced himself in anyway. As if to prove that Anders' assessment was correct, Hawke set a brutal pace, hard and fast, every stroke from the head of his cock to the hilt.

Anders was already so tired but he was also too sensitive, the swelling in his hole from being made love to for hours accentuated the burn he felt now, even as he twitched and shuddered under Hawke, coming again in spite of the pain.

“Stop,” Anders tried again, as Hawke's hand went to his hips to hold him in place, punishing him for a crime of passion he did not commit. His body responded to the familar scent and touch, and he was so swollen inside that he couldn't stop himself from the paroxysms being forced out of him, “I said stop.”

“I love you,” Hawke gazed down at him, tears filling his eyes and hips never ceasing their movements.

Teardrops fell on to Anders' chest. They were warm, and where they fell the salt of it mingled with the lyrium, producing a slight sting on his skin. He began to laugh, throwing an arm over his eyes to shield himself fromt he ridiculous sight of Hawke, crying.

His own laughter soon turned to tears; wasn't it just dandy that he wanted to hear those three words for so long, but never expected to hear them while he was being all but raped by the man he thought he loved.

There were other times where his protestations were ignored and his lack of consent kissed away, but this – the accusations and the shifting of blame on to him, the arrangement Hawke made with Fenris that led them to this very evening without his assent, and the blatant refusal to acknowledge Anders as a human being with his own opinions on what was done to his body. It all added up to too much.

What was the use of escaping from templars, if all he had done was run into Hawke's gilded cage?

“I love you, too,” said Anders, wiping at the corners of his eyes, “but I can't do this anymore.”

“You can't leave me,” Hawke had his hands on Anders' hips, and he still hadn't stopped, but his motions had slowed to a gentler pace. “I love you. You're mine.”

Anders shook his head, then raised a hand to stroke at Hawke's cheek. A stream of magic, abundant and always at hand, flowed through his fingertips, “sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read the [kmeme prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8832.html?thread=32889984), feel free to do so now. You've just read past what the prompt could spoil.
> 
> Originally, OP wanted a story about a sarcastic Hawke with a cuckulding kink. And then, well, I came along, and it took me 22 parts on the meme to build up to the scene the prompt talked about.
> 
> And we're FAR from done.


	7. Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke plays his last card; Fenris helps Anders breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme song  
> [Breathe Again](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yPU5WPwZs) by Sara Bareilles
> 
> Open up next to you and my secrets become your truth  
> And the distance between that was sheltering me comes in full view  
> Hang my head, break my heart built from all I have torn apart  
> And my burden to bear is a love I can't carry anymore
> 
> All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe  
> Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something  
> Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again
> 
> It hurts to be here  
> I only wanted love from you

He slammed the door hard enough for the vibrations to still reach his feet as he walked down the stairs. That explained why Anders seemed to have heard them when they went into the room in the first place. The pieces of the puzzle were all there, but he was too blind to see them at the time. His own willful ignorance was astonding when it came to Anders.

There was an ache in his bones, from hours on his knees and hands holding on to Anders' hips supporting his weight. It was a reminder, a good one, and he had looked forward to so much afterwards. Anders did kiss him, as he hoped the mage would have; his lips were dry, chapped from licking at them to keep them moistened as he babbled over the hours, but they were warm and soft like his dreams.

For a singular, brief, perfect moment, Fenris had everything.

Then the mage had pulled away and muttered his name as though he was questioning it, and Fenris saw it right away, the uncertainty and the confusion, that need for him to see as his hands went to the back of his blindfold. He knew then and there that they were both had, but it still didn't matter because he already showed Anders as much of himself as he was able to with each touch he gave.

Even when Hawke tried to turn it all around by blaming it all on the mage, shifting his schemes into something resembling a gift, he still held out that Anders might have been able to pull himself out of the trap.

Fenris had his hopes up. He should have known better. When Anders responded to Hawke's kiss, moaning into it and giving in completely, he had to turn away.

 _Kill them, my pet. Kill them all._ If he wasn't able to break free himself, why would he have expected Anders to do the impossible? He was Hawke's pet, one he wasn't afraid to train in front of visitors, and Anders was used to it, responding to kindness after violence, returning a kiss with closed eyes.

He could still hear them, Anders' staccato wails and Hawke's threatening tones, too low for human ears through the thick oaken door but he heard them all the same in the echoing foyer of the estate. Distantly, he heard Anders saying 'stop,' and he considered going back. He heard the slap of moist skin on skin, Hawke's low grunt, and Anders, asking Hawke to stop in between his cries.

He paused at the foot of the stairs. What if Anders turned him away, as Hawke had just turned him out? Anders was a harrowed mage and an abomination. If he was truly in danger, he could have defended himself any time he wanted. Fenris' help was unwelcome.

Actually, his wish to 'help' was what brought him here in the first place, an unwilling participant in a planned rape. He had to face the truth – he never had Anders' consent. It would have been foolish to call it anything else, even as his heart broke over the thought of Anders hating him for what he had done.

The servants were gone, sleeping and well out of earshot. Fenris paced in the foyer, undecided between staying or leaving. He settled on staring at the bedroom door from the front foyer. If Hawke emerged, he would turn and leave. Otherwise – well, otherwise, he had no idea.

He didn't want to see Anders. It was akin to looking into a mirror and facing the part of himself he never wanted to meet again when he saw him on the ground pliant under Hawke.

Fenris wasn't sure how long he waited, pacing from one end of the foyer to another. The sounds coming from upstairs had stopped and he thought about leaving, since the two of them could have gone to sleep after whatever Hawke was doing to Anders.

Then he heard the door open. Fenris hid in an alcove. He didn't dare to hope, but it was the careless shuffling that the mage employed, boots scuffing along the carpet so loud bandits could have heard him from the street.

It was a real wonder how he survived this long. Fenris peeked out from his niche, a small space set back in the wall where a bench sat.

"You're not very good at that," Anders walked right by his hiding place, wearing his patchwork coat and his pack.

The mage looked tired and a little haggard, but he had brushed out his hair and wiped down his face to keep the evidence of the evening to a minimum. He missed a smear of lyrium on his neck, and Fenris reached out to wipe it off without thinking.

Anders flinched before the hand connected, and Fenris felt a pang as though the mage had hit him, pulling his hand back. The evening had built up a certain amount of intimacy for Fenris, who was able to see while they made love, but he couldn't expect the same from Anders.

Anders must have seen the reaction, because he gave him a little warm smile that did nothing to cover the sadness in his eyes, "the gauntlets. You're forgetting the gauntlets."

"Oh," and it was just as well that they never got to talk before, because now that Anders was in front of him, he didn't know what to say. He wanted to apologise for - no, that needed more than a muttered 'sorry,' for his trespass he needed to be on his knees and beg for forgiveness.

Fenris reflexiely went into an old standby, the way one faced a magister, looking somewhere over Anders' shoulder at a distant spot on the wall.

Anders waited for more words, and when nothing was forthcoming, he broke the silence, "Fenris."

Fenris' line of sight snapped to the mage immediately at hearing his name called, but he said nothing.

"Do you know how we got into this mess in the first place?"

'We' was the operative word, and even amidgst the mess, as Anders called it, Fenris almost smiled, "Hawke told me that you were -"

"We're in this mess because you didn't bother asking me if Hawke was telling you the truth," Fenris' eyes widened in shock, and the guilt threatened to take over before Anders went on, "and because I was too much of a love struck idiot to notice what he was doing to me."

Fenris once told Sebastian that responsibility was the only thing magisters didn't take, but Anders was no magister. He shared the blame still, even though he was the one with the least fault, if any.

"Well, don't just stand there. I'm going to the Keep to see Aveline," Anders turned to leave without waiting for a response, "you should come along."

Fenris followed him, "to the Viscount's Keep? Why?"

He had no time to explain right now; Anders was running on pure adrenaline borne of pain and complete disregard of his emotions, and if he thought too hard he might collapse where he stood, "Aveline's office is the only place Hawke hadn't managed to break into."

It was the safest place Anders could think of. Until he had time to think things over and come up with a better plan, he needed to rest, and stay away from Hawke.

At the bottom of the long steps leading to the keep, Anders turned and looked up into one of the high windows of the Hawke estate.

It was home, for a little while.

That was the story of his life. A series of homes, but only for an undisclosed short amount of time, almost always ending badly. He thought it was different, this time. He thought Hawke was the love of his life.

The lamps in the second floor was still on, and if he squinted he could imagine Hawke standing behind one of the lacy curtains looking out into the street. Anders wondered if their story could have ended another way if he had noticed how wrong everything was between them, if he could have changed Hawke.

But he alone knew best that people only became more fully what they were, even Justice and himself. People did not change, not at the core, not where it really mattered. Hawke had always been controlling and manipulative and a little mad at the edges, but Anders had ignored all those things because he was nice.

Hawke said nice words that made Anders laugh and he did nice things that put him at ease. He was foolish to not look deeper, beyond that thin veneer of chivalry. Anders was already in love then, fooled by the sweet words and smiles, but most of all, by himself.

_You can't leave me. I love you. You're mine._

Anders stumbled on the steps; Fenris caught him by the elbow and steadied him, leaving his fingers open to keep the sharp points from digging into him. As soon as Anders had his footing again, Fenris dropped his hand.

"Thank you," Anders muttered, before turning again on the steps to look at Hawke's mansion. The bedroom windows were on the wrong side, only viewable from the garden courtyard, but he imagined that the sleep spell had already worn off and Hawke was there looking back at him.

 _I love you, too._ But he was never going back.

Hawke stood behind the thin curtains of the second story window, the lamps behind him put out. He was a shadow upon a shadow, and perhaps he was that on the inside as well now. Anders was the light in his life, the one thing that kept his darkness at bay.

He was willing to do anything to keep Anders with him. In this game - life was a war and a game rolled into one - he had gravely miscalculated. He was hoping his lover would notice something was wrong the moment Fenris had his hands on him. He also expected the anger that Fenris possessed would make him take out his hatred of magisters on a mage.

Hawke was so patient. He waited on quietly, and he was willing to wait until the end, as long as it took, for Anders to push Fenris away, or for Fenris to take things to such a violent level that he had to step in. Neither of these events came to pass, and when Anders chose to kiss Fenris, he'd had enough.

Hawke saw red, and logic never entered into his actions afterwards. Still, Anders was going to betray him sooner or later. He had only hastened the process.

Hawke retreated into the darkness of his room - once theirs, now his. All the candles had been extinguished but for one. He sat at the desk near the light, and picked up his quill.

Ten years ago, Hawke lost his father. His last will and testament was simple: take care of them for me. Carver was the first, crushed by an ogre. Bethany was next, taken to the Gallows, where all her ties were severed. They received one letter from her in three years, and that was smuggled out.

Hawke got all the blame, of course. He told himself he didn't mind; they were his responsibility and their father kept them all safe for years - it took only four for Garrett Hawke to lose them all, not a one of them left around to blame him. Sometimes he even missed his mother's nagging.

He pushed his seal gently into the wax to leave the light impression of the Amell family crest, and stared at his hand. It wasn't even shaking.

_This will be a disaster. But I can't live without it._

Lies. Hawke wanted to believe so badly all of the things that Anders had said, the declarations of undying love and the dramatic confessions, but while Hawke was the one who never said those words, he showed Anders his love in everything he did. Did he not?

Tears blurred his vision, casting everything in soft halos. He picked up the red rope still sitting on the bed. It was made for the sole purpose of wrapping over Anders' skin; made of velvet and soft as rabbit fur, coloured a blood red.

"My colour," he said to Anders once, kissing his forehead and wrapping the first loop over his neck. "So I can be with you always."

He had kissed the spot below each knot as he tied it on, sometimes tickling with his beard just to hear Anders let out a sweet giggle. The rope was worn in some places, little strands of fibre pressed flat from the knots. He could remember where each length dug into Anders' skin.

Hawke made Anders into a marionette. While that might have been disturbing to some, to them it was an act of love. Some mornings when he was too busy and left the house before he was able to dress his mage in the ropes, Anders would run into his arms at the end of the day, coming home earlier than usual from his clinic. Anders understood what Hawke needed - security and promises in action and not words.

But Anders wasn't coming back. He had left his chest under the bed, but his little pillow was gone.

Hawke lost the one last thing that anchored him. The house was truly empty now. It was getting hard to breathe.

He imagined Anders' face next to his as he looked into his silver mirror, one where they made love and stared at their reflections instead of each other. _This will be a disaster. But I can't live without it._ Anders' voice, Anders' words, a kiss that lasted forever.

Hawke touched his lips to the reflection of Anders, with his lopsided smile and his warm brown eyes.

_Goodbye, love._

*

Aveline knew that Hawke was mad, though in hightown they called it eccentric, but with both Anders and Fenris in front of her, filling out their statements and essentially asking for protection, it just about confirmed it.

She knew him better than anyone. She had known him the longest out of all of their circle of misfits, but he thought Anders was a stabilizing influence in his life. Love was madness and it only exacerbated whatever seed of insanity that was already there.

"Do you want to press charges?" Aveline followed the letter of the law, even if it was against a friend. Especially against a friend if he was a danger to everyone and himself.

"No!" Anders snapped, too fast and too loud, on the edge of hysteria. "I just need room to think, but he didn't want to hear any of that, and I don't want him to come to you saying that I'm missing and you come marching down to darktown with your guards to arrest me instead -"

"Anders. I'm not going to do any of that," it took some time to calm him down again, with Fenris standing there silently like a statue refusing to sit, looming over both of them. "It's late. You can both stay in my private suite here overnight, and I'll - we'll - all go talk to Hawke in the morning."

The suite was conected to the office. Anders started a fire in the hearth, piled high with logs but cold and unused, Aveline having moved out not too long ago after marrying Donnic. Fenris' brands flared up in reaction, but instead of the usual snarls that he sent Anders' way when the mage threw magic about without warning, he said nothing.

He had been usually silent, but Anders expected more than that after what they went through together. Anders wanted to remind Fenris that this mess they were in wasn't his fault. They were both victims as far as he was concerned.

Finally, when Fenris took off his armour and curled up on the sofa as Anders pulled up the covers over himself, he couldn't take the silent treatment any more.

"Fenris," the elf opened his eyes, enough moonlight coming through the windows to light them, shining like a cat's in the dark. Anders thought, briefly, of putting out milk to lure the elf, and smiled at the image. He pushed the covers aside with his arms open, "come here."

"You're upset," he got up from the sofa anyway, walking to the edge of the bed but made no move to get in, "I do not wish to take advantage."

"'Bit late for that," Anders laughed, and at last that edge of hysteria broke through and he felt the tears streaming down his cheeks before he could think to stop them. He pulled the covers up to wipe at his chin, where the tears tickled as it dripped over his everpresent stubble, "fuck."

Everything hurt; his shoulders where the muscles were tensed up supporting his weight for hours, soreness from their long session of love making, and most of all the ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe.

His breaths came in short bursts and he didn't know how to slow them, and soon there was a tingle like that of being untied in his limbs. He was laughing or crying or both, he wasn't sure which.

He missed Hawke desperately, those arms that came around him at night to calm him when he woke from his nightmares, Hawke's smile, real and loving and only for Anders. Tying on his knots and saying those words, 'so I can always be with you.'

Suddenly Anders thought he was drowning.

Darkness threatened to overtake his vision, black splotches at the edges with spots of green in them, a mouth on his, breathing life back into him. Warm breaths, slow, fighting against the quick contractions of his lungs with a seal over his lips. He was being lifted out of the bottomless pool, strong arms clutching his shoulders and blood rushing back into his digits.

Anders wrapped himself around his saviour, trying not to drown, drinking in Fenris through the breath they shared.

He was able to see again. Fenris looked down at him, half kneeling on the bed in his haste to help. He backed away as soon as he saw that Anders was finally breathing properly, "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Anders wanted to pull Fenris back against him, but he would have been the one taking advantage. Fenris had feelings for him, and though that information was still new and unexamined, he was still certain that he loved Hawke.

Hawke. He needed to check on Hawke. Hawke had no one. He was all alone with his dark thoughts and no candle to cast light in his shadows. Anders pushed the covers away, heading for the door.

"Where do you think you are going?" It came out harsh and authoritative, the usual tone of his snarl. Fenris pursed his lips. The last thing he needed was to turn into another Hawke. The foolish things the mage chose to do had that effect; it made the people close to him over-protective.

"I'm going back," Anders had one hand on the door handle. "I'm worried about him."

Fenris placed a hand over his, easing it off the handle, "that snake you called a lover is going to be fine. You, on the other hand, are not."

"He's not a ..." Anders wanted to defend him, but did he truly know Hawke? Was he in love with an illusion, a man who showed him kindness and some semblance of love only because he wanted a pet mage to play with? He was so sure only hours ago. His voice trailed off, leaving them in silence again.

"When Danarius left me on Seheron, I spent a whole fortnight by the shore waiting for him to come back for me." Fenris led Anders back to the bed, and the mage went willingly, allowing Fenris to pull the covers over him, "but he was fine without me. In the end he only wanted me back because I was his property."

"But I'm not a," _slave_ , Anders wanted to say, but stopped short of the word. Did he obey every command? Yes. Was he willing to do anything for Hawke? Yes. If Hawke had actually asked him to sleep with Fenris, without a blindfold and with him looking on, Anders might have said yes.

The realization left him staring down his hands bunching the covers into a mess of wrinkles.

"I ... once thought that I was in love with my master," Fenris climbed into the bed this time. He didn't want to risk Anders sneaking off once his eyes were closed. He pulled the mage into his arms, hugging him to his chest the way he had calmed him earlier in the day, pulling the leather tie out of his hair.

He stopped there, hoping that Anders would understand. The despair and the feeling of having his heart ripped away, that sense of unbearable loss eventually faded, leaving a scab behind that was more hatred than love.

Anders nudged his head up against Fenris' chin, habitually seeking that touch of beard on his forehead. Smooth skin met him and that only set him to weeping again, quiet and inconsolable, but a hand was stroking at his hair, and warmth surrounded him. He remembered that these arms held him earlier as well, giving love. He closed his eyes, letting the exhaustion pull him into a dreamless sleep.

At first light, Aveline knocked once and opened the door, Fenris waking as soon as the key turned in the lock and Anders sleeping on like the dead. She had not thought that the two of them were involved with each other, and she was about to say something sarcastic, how Anders had moved on so quickly, but her eyes were drawn to his neck.

Anders had a hand print on his neck. She swallowed whatever words she had against him; he had enough problems. He didn't need to deal with a guilt trip right now.

"I'm sending a maid up for a bath. Come to the office when he's ready to leave," she closed the door behind her, and the sound of it jolted Anders awake.

This early in the morning the light that came through the window was gray, like fade light. Where the pain was sharp over his heart before there was now a dull ache. He felt half dead, as though the colours had gone from his world.

He went through the motions of morning with Fenris guiding him, crying again over being in a bath washing his own hair, ducking underneath the surface to sluice off the shampoo instead of familiar hands and a body close against his back. All those platitudes he had, on loss, and that having loved was better than none at all, haunted him with their emptiness.

Anders was ready to just go back, run into Hawke's arms again where he could be sure of his overbearing love. He didn't care that he had to lose himself; he had lost hiself over so many different things - to the Circle, the Wardens, Justice - that one more didn't matter. He was happy.

He stared into the mirror when he was out of the bath, at the impressions of fingers blooming on his neck. Four fingers and a thumb on the other side, not even inflicted while trying to kill him. Just careless disregard. He fitted his own hand to it, and his fingers were longer, stretching over the edges of the new bruise.

With the image in his mind of Hawke's hand on his throat and the fear he felt then, he approached Hawke's bedroom door with Aveline by his side and Fenris following. He didn't trust himself not to give in as soon as he saw Hawke.

Bones was sitting outside, whining and pawing at the door. Aveline knocked once and tried the handle, but the door was locked, "Hawke, it's me. Open up!"

Nothing. _He's all alone._ Anders pushed her aside, "Hawke?"

"Let me," Fenris glowed behind him, reaching through the door to unlock it from the other side.

When the door opened, Fenris thought his nightmares had come true.

Hawke had red eyes, the same as those from his dreams, rabbit-like and overtaken entirely by blood. Fenris turned to look at Anders, but the mage was silent, wooden expression betraying nothing.

Anders summoned a brief flare of flames, severing the red rope from the top of the mirror. Hawke toppled down on to the floor, unmoving. Anders walked towards him, but his legs were suddenly filled with lead. He could hear someone calling his name, and Aveline swearing and calling the servants, but they were distant, unimportant.

He was on the floor too then, his legs no longer supporting him and Anders crawled the rest of the way, pulling Hawke against his chest, the way he used to do for Anders on really bad days. He closed those eyes, not wanting the evidence of death staring at him, loosening the red rope that cut into his neck.

Anders cast a spell, one that ate up blood under the skin to stop bruising, and it helped a little by fading the blue coldness of his lips but Hawke's cheeks were still pale. He held a glowing, warm hand to one side, then another, but it was too late to look for a spark of life. It was gone hours ago, before he woke.

Probably before he went to sleep, or before he went into the room Aveline provided for him. Hawke was already gone by then. Maybe the link between them was strong enough that he felt it when Hawke took his last breath.

It was foolish of him to plan on staying or leaving, or fearing for his life from Hawke, or guess whether the man still loved him or not.

It never really mattered. Whatever he thought or planned, reality had always been here.

"I'm sorry," Anders leaned down then, and kissed his cold lips. "I should never have left."

He touched his forehead to Hawke's, but there was no temperature to check, nothing there he could cure, and perhaps he was dead on the inside long ago, Anders the only thing that kept him here, gave him enough light to go on.

"It's not your fault," Fenris' voice and a hand at his shoulder. Anders shook it off and held Hawke tighter. If he had done it sooner, returning those embraces freely and gave him the possession he needed to assure him that Anders loved him and wished to consume him the way he was consumed, they wouldn't be here.

He should never have left, and if they were to burn up together in the flames of Hawke's love, then so be it.

Fenris was holding a sealed letter in his hand, with Anders' name on it. Anders made no move to take it. Everything he wanted and needed was right here and he was gone, "open it. Give it to Aveline."

_Stupid man. We could have fixed it._ Whatever was broken between them, as long as they were both still alive they could have changed things and talked over things and made it better and be together. _Stupid, stubborn man._ Anders was crying again, and he thought that was enough, really, he wasn't a woman and this was getting ridiculous.

How Hawke would have chided him for his tears, wiped at them with his thumb and kissed the salt trails down his cheeks.

"I love you," he whispered. He loved Hawke's bright brown eyes, strange and predatory and full of life. He could imagine that Hawke was just sleeping, exhausted from hunting bandits or slavers or giant spiders, but behind those eyelids the whites were all red, and Anders had seen it before in the tower, where mages took their own lives more often than was taken by templars.

Fenris scratched open the seal on the letter. A small card that was folded into it fluttered down on to the floor. He picked it up and was about to hand both to Aveline when he caught his name on the card.

It was a playing card. A trickster, only one in every deck. There were two words on it, 'FOR FENRIS' cleanly printed in block letters. It was a message perhaps only Fenris could have understood, bringing to mind the game they had been playing with Anders as the wager without putting a name to it.

The message was loud and clear, _I just played my last card._

_Are you just going to let him win?_ Anders' voice was in his head, and it was only last week but it was a lifetime ago. Fenris wanted to retort that he was left with no choice again, as one could not compete with the dead. Hawke was perfect, all wrongs forgotten.

This had not been an act of sacrifice or despair. It was his last bid to keep Anders with him, hoping that the mage would either follow him or grieve for him forever.

"Anders," it was Aveline, the voice of reason, who broke the silence. "The letter is personally addressed to you - I can't be reading it."

"I don't care," Anders snapped. "Read it aloud. I can't see anything right now anyway."

Resigned, Aveline began to read, but what Anders heard was Hawke's voice, the calming one he used when Anders was upset. He grasped a hand, stiff with rigor, and feebly sent a stream of healing magic through it by instinct.

_Anders._

_I thought about addressing you some other way, but now that you are freed from me, maybe you would appreciate hearing just your name. I love you. Maybe if I had spoken those words sooner, you would still be here with me._

_The truth is that I have loved you since the moment I saw you, and I knew I would love you to my last breath._

_My life has been full of 'too little, too lates' and 'should have beens.' I'm truly tired of it. I seem to always arrive when the worst already happened, and I can't help but expect it. I guess I expected the worst of you, too._

_There's a will in the second drawer, and I had it renewed when you moved in. Everything that I own is yours, by trust of Aveline. I can't exactly put it to 'Anders,' since you never told me your real name, and I trust her to protect you for me. If, one day, you do manage to free the Circles, and Bethany can live here again, this could still be your home, if you wanted it. There's details in that drawer - names of contacts in the Gallows I've been gathering for years, mostly to keep Bethany safe and to keep you free._

_You are crying again. Men don't cry. It is not your fault that I cannot live without you. You have always been the stronger one of the two of us, and everyday that I woke up and you were still there had been a surprise. You said once that it would kill you to lose me, but I'm afraid you had that the other way around._

_When you asked me the first night we were together, whether I truly meant it when I agreed for you to move in, I wanted to tell you that I wanted you with me until the day we die. It just sounded too fatalistic at the time so I kept my mouth shut. Keeping those words to myself whenever you were sentimental just became a habit. I thought if I told you how I truly felt, you would have left. But you left anyway, and I said those words too late._

_So many words, and all I really want to say is that I wish I told you how I felt sooner. I guess this is goodbye, love. If there is such a thing as reincarnation and we chance to meet again, I promise not to be such a fool._

There was commotion near him, Bodahn at the door and the sound of Orana crying, but he was focused on Hawke in his arms. He never had a chance to do this, to protect his man instead of the other way around, but the time that Hawke needed his arms was gone.

He looked up and met Fenris' eyes, and the anger rose up, a sudden impulse to find someone to blame. But he knew that even if Fenris moved away from the door when Anders wanted to come back, it was probably too late already. The words were in his throat fighting to get out and he didn't want to end up blaming him, "go. Please. I want to be alone."

Everyone slowly filed out, Aveline taking a stack of papers with her, presumably the will and the deed to the estate. Fenris stood by the door, not entirely sure if the mage should be left by himself.

"I said go!" Anders shouted. He had always been soft spoken, leaving the yelling to Justice, but Justice was in hiding now, not understanding the depth of emotions that coursed through his host. Seeing the concern writ on Fenris' face, Anders sighed, "Justice will not let me take my own life. Go."

Fenris took the card with him. Instead of going out the front door, he went into the library, where Bodahn already had a fire going.

He stood in front of the fire then, under the gaze of that Tevinter statue. Fenris needed to hear the words aloud, for himself.

"Goodbye, Hawke. Don't think you've won," he tore the card to pieces, throwing the fragments into the fire. "I'm not giving up on Anders."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise if this wasn't what you expected.
> 
> I'm sorry that Hawke had to die. Somewhere back in chapter 3, when I realized that he weould never learn to love properly, and that he would always close his eyes to the love Anders gave him, his fate became inevitable. Most of you might have seen it coming.
> 
> It all boiled down to this.  
> "As for Hawke, he always thought he won in the end, even if the loss was on all sides."
> 
> The title of the chapter came from a song from Rent, [Without You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=237L1wljEHw).  
> Without you / the hand gropes / the ear hears / the pulse beats  
> Without you / the eyes gaze / the legs walk / the lungs breathe  
> The mind churns / the heart yearns / the tears dry / without you  
> Life goes on / but I'm gone / 'cause I die / without you  
> \- Jonathan Larson


	8. There Goes the Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders performs an exorcism with Fenris' help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Close your brown eyes  
> And lay down next to me  
> Close your eyes, lay down  
> 'Cause there goes the fear, let it go
> 
> You turn around and life's passed you by  
> You look to ones you love to ask them why  
> You look to those you love to justify  
> You turned around and life's passed you by
> 
>  
> 
> [There Goes the Fear, Doves](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUttSVG99BM)

They had to drag him away from Hawke, after he exhausted his mana casting healing spells that went nowhere.

Once the hysteria and the shock passed, the first thing he did was get rid of that mirror. He wasn't happy with simply storing it; he took it down to a blacksmith and had it melted down. Anders didn't care what it was made into, but he wanted it gone out of existence.

He slept in the estate, in their old bed, for the entire first week after the funeral.

A City-State funeral; Anders couldn't get over the hypocrisy of it. Everyone who had nothing to do with Hawke in life beyond clanking glasses together at hightown parties gave a speech about his character; how he was noble in spirit though he rose up from being just a refugee of the blight, destined for greatness; how his bravery saved them all from a conversion to the Qun. Meredith gave a speech. Even the Grand Cleric gave a speech. The words passed him by, all about Hawke's years of service and the lives he affected.

It was all bullshit, vague and sparsely detailed like something a fortune teller would have told. What they said could have been said at any Ferelden noble's funeral, aside from the major lines.

Right after the funeral, people began to moved on. Anders couldn't wrap his head around it. Hawke was reduced to a plaque on a statue that didn't even look like him at the docks near the old Qunari compound. He had touched so many lives, saved so many people, and his passing was like first snow. It came, it melted, and it was quickly forgotten.

Outside of his immediate circle of friends, no one even knew how he died. They made up some story of an assassin that struck in the night, never apprehended, enough to make every hightown noble bar their windows and hire extra guards. Suicide was a sin in the eyes of the Maker, and it was whispered of, but not spoken aloud.

His friends never talked about it with him, on their numerous visits. They asked him how he was, and he gave him perfunctory answers, speeches that meant nothing at all. _I'm fine, thank you for coming. Are you staying for dinner?_

He was not fine.

He saw Hawke everywhere, in the library, bending to peer at the spine of a book, on a chair by the fire in the study, sitting on the opposite end of the dining room table, just beyond the edge of his vision. Some mornings he woke and he felt a presence on the other side of the bed, a weight and warmth that was just heavier than air.

Anders liked to think that the estate was haunted. He knew better, being an educated man; dead people did not haunt, and what echoes they left behind in the waking world were limited to places where the veil was thin. No, Fenris mansion was more likely to be haunted.

Fenris dragged him out of bed after that first week, guilt-tripping him back into the clinic with Lirene, more for his own health than for the sake of his patients.

Work helped a little. He brought some new life into the world, he lost others. It all affected him less than it used to. He wasn't quite as elated when a child was born, and he mourned none at all for those who did not live.

He started sleeping in the clinic again, but once in a while, he would wake in the middle of the night forgetting who and where he was, and he would wander out his clinic doors, up through the cellars of the estate, and climb into their old bed.

It did not help at all. There were new sheets on the bed that did not smell at all of Hawke, and though Bodahn kept a fire burning in the room whether or not Anders chose to sleep there, it was always cold.

At least when he slept in the clinic he could imagine that Hawke was back in his room, sleeping alone and waiting for Anders.

Everyone told him that he should forget, and move on.

Anders didn't want to forget.

The little things went first; the exact way Hawke held his tea cup and which side of his face he used to start with when he trimmed his beard; his scent, underneath the aftershave, that was entirely Hawke, gone even from his old pillows now; the bright preternatural brown of his eyes in Anders' dreams faded to a dark burnished gold.

All the details were withering, and Anders never wanted them to go. Everyone else was moving on and forgetting him, their friend, his lover, the city's savior, and Anders felt guilty for every little detail that fled.

It was more than just those things that disturbed him and made him feel, above all, guilty; as the months went by and he was farther away from their relationship, things that he used to ignore popped up in his nightmares. Little things, inconsequential at the time but all the memories of Hawke he had left now, replaying in his mind in sleep.

He took each one and picked it apart, finding little signs; a grip too tight here, an objection ignored there, pinned down to the bed by his hair and unable to move, focusing on the way moonlight streamed through the windows to numb the pain.

Fenris was staring at him from one end of the clinic, a child at his knee waving a picture book impatiently, and he patted her on the head and whispered something quiet to her before he approached Anders at his desk.

He had become something of a staple in the clinic now, after one shrapnel incident affecting dozens of workers in lowtown sent him running down to help. Anders taught him that his phasing abilities were good at tasks other than killing people.

Isabela came back sometime after Hawke's death, and on her visit to the clinic, she caught Fenris removing an arrowhead from a man's shoulder. She just smirked and said, "I told you so."

Anders had a feeling that the elf was here because he wanted to keep an eye on him. They both agreed, however, that Danarius would burst an artery over the thought that his king's ransom worth of lyrium was being used to treat darktown refugees for free.

"Do you want to talk?" Fenris asked, taking a seat on a nearby cot.

He had stopped being surprised at the fact that Fenris was able to seemingly read his mind, "I was just thinking about Hawke."

Fenris' shoulders tensed up, "what about him?"

"I keep hearing from everyone how it's not my fault -"

Fenris cut him off, "it's not your fault."

"But if it's not my fault, whose is it? Yours?" Anders snapped, feeling sorry the moment the words left his mouth. It took only minutes for someone to die of asphyxiation; if his own dry drowning was any sign, then by the time they got back to the estate it would have been too late.

"It's his own fault," it wasn't the first time they had this conversation and it would hardly be the last time. Fenris was resigned to their little spats; Hawke's death would always be between them. "We can argue about the reasons for his death until we are blue in the face, Anders. Death is always senseless, and suicide even more so. You cannot fault yourself forever for something he has done on his own."

"I think I'm beginning to understand all the things you've been trying to tell me," Anders leaned on his desk over his crossed arms, laying his head atop them sideways. "I knew that he was controlling and manipulative. I think I've known that all along. I just thought that for him, I was different."

"Go on," Fenris knew, from their numerous fights on Hawke by now, that pushing only made things worse.

"Everyone's been trying to convince me that he was a bit of a monster. Well, I know that now. I also know that he loved me, maybe he loved me too much, even," a tear slipped down into his sleeve, but he ignored it. The sudden bouts of emotion only came when he thought about Hawke, and sometimes he welcomed it. It was preferable to feeling nothing, "and just because I know what kind of a person he was, it doesn't change a thing. I still love him. And everyone telling me what I should or shouldn't do - it just makes it worse."

Fenris tapped his fingers over the edge of the cot, where the wood held up the fabric, "do you just want to talk, or do you wish to know what I think?"

Anders blinked, surprised that he was asked. That was another annoyance; being with other people without Hawke constantly by his side only reminded him of how little his opinions used to matter, "tell me."

"Try to think of what Hawke would have wanted."

This was a common question to the bereaved, with common, set answers such as 'he'd want me to move on,' or 'he'd want me to live my life,' but Anders couldn't say them. They were not 'right' answers, not in this case. Hawke's motivations were always a bit of a mystery to him. When confronted with the confounding, Anders talked it out.

"He wanted me to keep living in the mansion," he began with the concrete, solid facts and not the theoretical, "and keep Orana employed and feed Bones and take him out on walks. Lead the mages in revolution and free Bethany ..."

 _He would have wanted me tied to his old life forever._ His voice trailed off, but the words continued on. Hawke surrounded Anders with his scents and memories and ghosts, his favorite brandies and the books he used to read and the textures of his pillows.

Hawke had hung himself right after Anders left; if he did it out of despair, he might have done it some time later, in the months following. Anders refused to look at the reasoning behind that too closely, but it was so obvious as to hammer on his skull.

Anders used to be afraid of the cellars in the tower when he was a child, the apprentices telling ghastly stories of spirit encounters and such in the dead of night making it hard to walk by those big doors any time of day. Then he grew up and found out that they were just rooms upon rooms of old scrolls and cobwebs and apprentice phylacteries - and if he wasn't so afraid of the doors, maybe he could have found a way to get in, burn up his phylactery, to escape for good.

There were another set of stairs going into a deeper set of cellars that contained actual prison cells. They didn't even house ghosts or spirits. Only himself.

He should have seen it sooner, but by the time he looked back and saw the wreckage they made of their 'relationship,' violence and love, agreement and submission were so intertwined that he could no longer pick them apart. Anders could not trust himself to be able to tell one from the other.

"Fenris," Anders raised himself from the cradle of his arms, wiping at the corner of his eyes with his sleeves, "can you come to the estate tonight?"

If there was one place more dismal than his borrowed mansion, it was Hawke's, "I would really rather not."

"Please?" Anders employed his best rendition of puppy eyes, "I need you for an exorcism."

"The estate is haunted?" Fenris was there when they found Varric's brother. Though that was not so much a haunting as it was plain insanity and lyrium overdose.

"After a fashion," there were faces in the fire and mirrors, sounds in the distant, unused rooms, but Anders was quite sure that the first was his imagination, and the other, mice.

He looked into Fenris' eyes, and while he used to think them cold and uncaring, Anders knew that he was anything but. If it wasn't for Fenris, Anders would have locked himself inside Hawke's bedroom and never came out. He kept catching himself; the past tenses that slipped in when he thought of his once lover, referring to something that was 'theirs' as solely 'Hawke's.'

Then he remembered that this man here that he had been considering a friend had feelings for him and what he was going to ask him to do was something that he might have been able to ask a casual, good friend, but not Fenris, because it was unfair. Anders would have been taking advantage.

"Look," Anders' hand went to his forehead, and he sighed, "I don't know why I asked you. It's not fair to you and I know it. My," he waved his hands in front of him vaguely, "keeping you here all the time as a 'friend' isn't fair to you."

"I choose to be here," he looked a little sideways to avoid Anders' gaze, and the mage read that as sadness, which Fenris wore habitually and it was what Anders used to read as brooding. "But if I make you feel uncomfortable in any way, I can go."

Anders reached over and placed a hand over his then, lacing their fingers together, "not at all."

"If you need my help," Fenris' eyes were on their hands, together. Anders had been so careful since that night, keeping their contact to a minimum, afraid of raising his hopes, perhaps. "I'll always be there."

Anders smiled warmly, and the corners of his eyes crinkled as his face lit up. It was so rare now that Fenris couldn't help but stare, wide-eyed.

He didn't know why he ever thought Anders had soft features; it must have been a trick of the light. His nose was too long and his chin too sharp, the angular edges of his jaw and his prominent brow bones made him look especially animated, but his features were almost severe, except when he smiled.

"Thank you," Anders let go of his hand, fingertips lingering a little too long to be casual, "join me for dinner?"

Orana was so happy about serving a hot dinner to more than the dwarves for once that she went overboard, and was quite disappointed when they left most of it.

"It's handy having a mage in the house though, isn't it?" Anders wriggled his fingers, coating them in frost. They never had to restock the ice cellar. He shook off the icicles hanging from his digits, "I'll eat it all tomorrow. Pinky promise."

She was thriving, now that Hawke was gone. She bowed graciously when Anders thanked her and called him by name, not adding 'master' to the beginning of it.

"Hawke used to snap at her for calling him 'master,'" Anders confessed, when Fenris asked, "I made it into a bit of a joke and just pretended to ignore her until she called me 'Anders.'"

After dinner, Anders led them to a guest room, off the first floor and not anywhere near the master bedroom. There was fresh linen on the bed and a silver mirror, part of a vanity, angled to face the bed.

Anders pulled his shirt over his shoulders, sitting down on the edge of the bed with the fabric still wrapped around his elbows, "you can still change your mind."

The last time he saw the mage unclothed was that unfortunate evening. Fenris stared at Anders' broad shoulders and his well-defined arms, "I ... don't think I understand."

"The house isn't haunted," Anders pulled free of the shirt, letting it fall to the floor, "I am. Will you help me?"

"Anything." Fenris no longer hid his feelings from the mage, not since the incident. As Anders had once said, hiding from him was what 'got them in trouble' in the first place.

"Come here," Anders opened his arms.

Fenris undid the catches on his gauntlets, leather piling in a heap on the floor, his flexible chest plate barely making a sound, but the implications of undressing in Anders' presence, with his eyes on him, rang loudly in his ears.

He walked forward into Anders' embrace, the mage turning his head to lay his ear over Fenris' heart, "what do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to ask things of you," Anders pulled back, looking up, arms still around Fenris' waist, "and you'll do it. You can refuse, but you may not question me. And if I say stop, you stop."

Fenris nodded his assent, "and I can only do what you ask?"

"No, but same rule applies - if I say stop, you stop." Anders pulled his legs up on to the bed, bringing Fenris with him, "kiss me."

They met in a soft kiss, Fenris letting Anders set the pace. Just a slow, burning brush of lips at first, sweet like the wine Fenris brought with him.

"I'm not made of glass," Anders pulled back a little, breathing a little heavy, hard between their bodies where Fenris straddled him. He moved his hands up Fenris' chest, coming to rest on the sides of his head, fingers nestling in white hair, "kiss me."

Fenris followed Anders' example, resting one forearm on the bed to brace himself while he pulled out the tie in Anders' hair and twined his fingers into the blond strands. When he leaned down again, Anders visibly flinched.

Fenris pulled back, "what's wrong?"

"It's the ... hair," Anders flicked his glance sideways to where Fenris had wrapped his fingers into his hair, and he started to extricate himself from them, "no, keep it there. I didn't say stop."

Their lips met again, and it was hungry and rough, with Anders' stubble rasping across Fenris' smooth chin. Fenris got daring and slipped his tongue in, turning his head to one side to angle his mouth, and Anders moaned appreciatively. Fenris sneaked a glance, seeing the mage's eyes were half open, lazily gazing back though it was too close for him to focus.

Their position left no room for Anders to speak or pull away, but Anders tugged a little at his hair and Fenris raised his head, gasping a little.

Anders eyed the white lyrium lines on the front of Fenris' throat, and moved one hand down, stopping just short of them. He looked up from them to see Fenris studying him, "may I?"

"You may touch them," Fenris moved Anders' hand down to the lines for him without hesitation, "it doesn't hurt. It used to remind me of the pain of branding when it was touched, but you helped me get over that."

"I did?" Anders traced the lines with his fingers, over the collarbones and his chest, thumb brushing over a nipple. Fenris shivered, hips thrusting forward a fraction, "I'm glad."

He moved his hand behind Fenris, pushing him forwards and freeing the space for his tongue, drawing a circle over the edges of the nipple where the skin was darker even than his dusky brown, and closed his mouth over it, laving the flat of his tongue over the hard nub. Fenris gasped, the erotic touch alien and strange and wonderful, his hips rutting against Anders rhythmically without thought.

Anders hummed against his skin, the vibrations setting off a series of low moans, Fenris attempting to bury them in the top of Anders' hair, and the mage shook him off, moving along the lines to his throat and the side of his neck, biting down near a spot under his ear. He soothed it with a lap of his tongue that followed up the edge of his elvhen ear, sucking the tip into his mouth, and Fenris keened at the feeling of it, sparks flying through his nerves down into his groin.

Hands moved from his back to the sides of him, finally gripping at his hips. Anders was pulling him forward, so Fenris moved until he was straddling Anders' chest with his knees to either side of his shoulders. Anders peeled over the waistband of the leggings; they were flexible and flipped over in the front easily, freeing his cock.

Anders curled his fingers over the edge of the leggings and pulled him forward, until his mouth could reach the base of Fenris' cock easily. He mouthed up one side, slicking it in saliva, then another, coating his member completely.

"I need you to fuck my mouth," Anders had his hands behind Fenris' arse now, pushing him forward. He tapped one hand against the small of Fenris' back three times, "if I tap you three times in a row, it means stop. But if I don't stop you, push as far as you can go and do it hard and fast. If I tap you once, it means harder. Hold me down by my hair."

Fenris opened his mouth to ask 'why,' but remembered at the very last moment that Anders specifically said that he wasn't allowed to ask questions, only to refuse. He winded his fingers into the sides of Anders' head, pinning him down by his hair, and gingerly thrust into his mouth. Anders tapped him once, impatiently, and he pushed the rest of the way in, the mage swallowing in time to suck it down into his throat.

He could feel the flat of Anders' tongue, rough and stretched along the underside of him along a vein, trying to draw him in farther even though his sac was sitting against Anders' bottom lip. There was another impatient tap, and Fenris began to thrust slowly into his welcoming throat. It was warm and tight and he resisted the urge to thrust in too hard until Anders tapped him again, harder this time. He began thrusting in earnest, short little movements that kept him in the grip of Anders' throat.

Anders tapped him three times; Fenris stopped and pulled out. The mage smiled at him, saliva at the corner of his mouth and lips swollen. When he spoke his voice was hoarse and rough, "that was neither hard nor fast."

"Doesn't that hurt?" Fenris moved a hand out of Anders' hair and touched a finger to his lips, feeling the swelling there.

"You can tell me no, if you want," Anders licked at his lips, drawing Fenris' finger in and sucking on it lightly. Fenris pulled his finger away, and Anders chased it with a pointed tongue, head still pinned to the mattress by his hair, "I'm not answering questions."

Fenris moved forward and pushed in again, faster this time, and a flare of magic behind him as Anders summoned a palm full of grease startled him and Fenris bucked forward to the hilt. He looked down, afraid he might have hurt the mage, but Anders just winked at him, humming over him with a sound of pleasure as he wrapped his fingers around his own erection and began to stroke.

A hand pulled down his leggings more in the back, and slipped between his cleft, fingers slick with magical grease circling his entrance, waiting patiently for him to relax and allow the intrusion. Fenris had to concentrate to loosen the muscles, the spasms of Anders' throat swallowing around the head of his cock making him contract and hold himself tighter instead. When they finally slipped in he started babbling, the way Anders had done before for him, but in Arcanum.

Fenris was locked between the two sensations as Anders gave him another tap to signal 'faster,' milking Fenris' cock with his mouth, while the fingers inside him forced him to give up his control, the action to relax and hold on fighting one another until he came quickly, thrusting erratically as Anders swallowed his seed to the last drop.

In one of those thrusts, he went possibly too deep, and Anders gagged a little, but he held on until Fenris said 'stop' and 'too much' in between his whimpers. Anders gave a few parting licks to the tip as Fenris withdrew, and he slipped his fingers out, running his hand over the smooth skin of Fenris' thighs, the lyrium raised over the rest of him like scar tissue.

He pushed Fenris down by his hips until they could be face to face again, and licked his lips, "kiss me."

Fenris still had his hands in Anders' hair. He gently eased his fingers out on to the mattress, to either side of his head, before leaning down and catching the mage's lips in a devouring kiss. Anders' lips were swollen and moist, with just the merest hint of fresh grass from the seed he swallowed.

"Is it all right if I use magic on you?" Anders asked into his lips as their kiss slowed to a simmer.

Fenris knew that this mage wouldn't harm him, "yes."

Anders wrapped his long fingers around Fenris' softened member then, and smirked, mischief in his eyes and sinful with his swollen lips. The magic coursed through Fenris, warm and sweet and sensuous like Anders himself, and he felt as though he could have run around hightown ten times, whatever languid afterglow he was in banished and he was suddenly hard and attentive.

"I want you to fuck me," Anders whispered, coating his hand in more grease and slicking up Fenris' cock.

Anders turned over and crawled farther on to the bed, both of them still lying somewhat sideways on it, and he faced the mirror, checking his reflection. He got on all fours, kicking his trousers off and reaching a hand back to push a finger inside himself, spreading slick around his entrance.

He stretched his arms in front of him, gripping the edge of the mattress, and flattened his upper body against the bed while leaving his arse raised like an offering.

"Do you want me to -" and Fenris already placed a hand on his arse, ready to prepare him, but Anders stopped him.

"No, just push it in and don't stop unless I ask you to," their eyes met in the mirror, and there was a little fear but mostly determination there in Anders' amber eyes, a crease in between his brows.

 _An exorcism,_ Anders had called it. These must have been some of the things Anders had to do for Hawke that he had gotten so used to that he was able to derive pleasure from them, and yet they were so rough as to be near acts of violence. Anders was taking each one of them and taking the control back for himself, trusting Fenris to stop when asked.

Fenris pulled off his tights, the fabric joining Anders' trousers on the floor, and he pushed in, slowly and carefully, the mage opening up easily under him, mouth open taking deep breaths to relax himself. Fenris held on to the mage's hips, pulled all the way out until only the head of his cock was still inside, and pushed back in with one long stroke.

Anders hadn't done this in months, and the grimace he showed then almost made Fenris stop, but no command was forthcoming, so he did it again, slow and barely a rhythm.

"Faster," Anders grunted, beads of sweat beginning to appear on his forehead from the pain, "deeper. Slam it into me. Use me, damn it. Harder!"

Fenris' grip wasn't hard enough on Anders' hips. A couple of times his hands slipped and Anders toppled forward, the force of his thrusts enough to knock him over. Each time he pulled the mage back up, he tightened his grip until at last they were iron-clad and solid and probably leaving prints behind.

Anders was wailing by now, and he came close to asking Fenris to stop a few times, but he turned his head into the mattress instead, biting at the linen to stop himself from giving in. The pressure inside him was building in spite of the pain, or because of it, turning the pain into yet more sensation.

This time there was no hand to clamp down on him to stop him from coming.

This time, he raised his head, eyes wide open to take in Fenris behind him, committing an act of violence and love that Anders could have stopped any time he wanted, as he came hard with Fenris inside of him. Anders gave in to the hands holding his hips and the cock inside, with its unstoppable banging against his spot, and friction burning up the sides of his channel. Fenris didn't slow, letting Anders ride out his orgasm with the constant pressure on every stroke he gave, pushing past the spasms to squeeze more shouts out of him.

Fenris slowed down when Anders' shuddering stopped, but the mage raised his eyes to the mirror and met him, "keep going. As hard as you can."

They were punishing thrusts, and Anders wanted it, needed it. He made them his and he knew that it was his decision all along; Hawke was not a templar and Anders was not locked up in some little prison cell in the depths of Kinloch Hold. Anders had power at his fingertips, more so probably than any other mage alive, and yet he held back in the name of love.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he saw the shock on Fenris' face and Anders knew what he was thinking, so he shouted, "don't fucking stop!"

In the mirror, Fenris winced. He couldn't look anymore or he was going to lose his erection and not be able to fulfill Anders' wishes. He tried looking away, but he couldn't, not with Anders' hair parting behind his neck and framing his cheeks in gold, broad shoulders stretched taut and every muscle defined and beautiful.

He tried concentrating on the man's arms and the dimples in the small of his back, but he couldn't shut out the sobbing sounds coming from in front of him. Fenris squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine Anders, babbling blasphemy and enjoying what they were doing instead of enduring this pain Fenris was being forced to give him.

"Stop," Anders spoke one word and Fenris stilled, frozen mid-stroke. The mage wiped at his eyes, clearing his vision, "why are your eyes closed?"

"You were crying," Fenris stated plainly.

Anders pulled forward, disengaging them and turned to face him kneeling on the bed the same way, position mirroring Fenris', "and?"

"It gives me no pleasure to cause you undue pain."

It sounded so simple when Fenris said it, that Anders laughed, falling forward and burying the sounds of his chortle into Fenris' neck, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you through that."

"I could have refused," Fenris shrugged.

"But you didn't. Thank you," he crawled forward, bracing his hands on Fenris' thighs, and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I know I'm ... taking advantage of you. You've been a good friend, but I really didn't know who else to ask."

Fenris pursed his lips as a sudden bout of jealousy ate at his heart. He touched a hand to Anders' cheek, "I don't know how I would be able to stand it if you had asked someone else."

Anders didn't know what to say; any response to that would have resulted in some sort of commitment, and he was sure he wasn't ready for that, not yet, and he did not yet know if that answer was 'not ever.' He hoped not, but until he found out he wasn't going to make any promises he might break.

Fenris gave him some answers, such straightforward ones that he never considered before, that if Hawke truly loved and cared about Anders, things between them would have turned out a lot differently. Perhaps Hawke was incapable of love, or he never learned to love properly in an equal relationship that did not involve a skewed balance of power.

It made him a little sad that he never had the chance to convince Hawke of his love. What Anders did was indulge him, playing the obedient slave and enabling whatever deviance already there. Anders was always the stronger one, a mage never defenseless even bound and naked, and he had allowed these things Hawke had done to him.

He could have shifted the blame on to Hawke, he supposed, but that was never the entire story, was it? Anders was so addicted to his kindness that he was willing to put up with Hawke's abuse, hoping against hope that one day Hawke would see things his way and realize how much Anders loved him.

And Hawke thought Anders was lying, all that time, and punished him everyday for it, pushing him to the point of breaking then soothing his bruises with kisses just to find out how much he had bound the mage to him, but Anders was bound already, by his own love, if not by bondage.

They were both so very broken. It was a miracle that they lasted even a year together. What became of Hawke in the end was senseless, in the way that all deaths were senseless, but his friends were right; Anders had to move on.

If he wanted something with Fenris, something worth having, a partnership of equals, Anders needed to find out who he truly was, again.

And Fenris was gazing expectantly at him. He deserved an answer, even if it wasn't something he would have wanted to hear, "I'm not ready for anything yet. I'm not sure when I will be."

"I can wait. A bodyguard learns to be very good at waiting," Fenris smiled then, showing that rare streak of humour that he only let on to the very few.

"I'm sure you can," Anders still had his hands on Fenris' thighs, and he smoothed them both up towards his groin, grasping his erection. He smiled, lopsided and playful and Fenris hadn't ever seen that look on the mage before. It was private then, something reserved for lovers, "but let's take care of this, shall we?"

"Do you still wish to be in control?"

"I don't have to," Anders kissed him, long and deep; they were both breathless by the time he pulled away. "Do you have anything specific in mind?"

"Not really," he touched his forehead to Anders', relishing the closeness, "just as long as I get to see your face, and ..." he trailed off.

Anders maneuvered them both towards the headboard, piling pillows together and leading Fenris to sit against them, "and?"

"And I can kiss you," he glanced away, unsure. It was one thing to be in bed together, but his request for kisses seemed more intimate than all the other things they've done.

Anders straddled Fenris' lap, fitting snugly between his thighs and his torso. He kissed Fenris once, quick and chaste on the lips, "hey. I'm not going to promise anything, but you are ... dear to me."

His eyes said so much more, not just 'dear' but 'love,' and yet also _I'm too broken to stay with you,_ which only made Fenris want to hold him tighter and make the world go away. But he could only kiss back, a little deeper than the sweet kisses Anders gave him and muttered, "okay."

Fenris didn't want to push him. The mage would have to come to him on his own.

Anders lined himself up and pushed slowly down, hands coming to rest behind Fenris' neck and leaning his head over enough to focus on those green eyes, pupils dark and blown. He sank down, wincing a little at the burn, but the gasp that came out of him left him out of pleasure. Fenris placed one hand on the small of his back, supporting him, while the other he slipped between them, wrapping slim fingers over his length.

They worked into an easy rhythm, Anders holding himself mostly still for their lips to meet and Fenris pushing his hips up to thrust into him, neither one willing to look away, stealing kisses from one another between gasps and moans.

Anders came calling Fenris' name, and his lips were caught again right after, Fenris swallowing the remaining moans, every shudder and quiver wrapped up in his arms, and when he came soon afterwards, rolling the mage on to his back and pushing the last few thrusts into him, their lips never parted.

Fenris collapsed right on top of him. Anders didn't mind, pushing his ankles into Fenris' back when he tried to pull away. He didn't want this to end, not yet, not with what he had planned so soon after this, a plan that hatched itself as they kissed and he knew he wanted this, wanted Fenris, and most of all, wanted to be good enough for him.

"I'm leaving Kirkwall," Anders said, as they lain together afterwards, facing each other with their legs entwined.

Fenris just stared right back, impassive. Anders knew that he was probably feeling a little hurt, but he wasn't about to wear it on his face because showing it would have constituted a guilt-trip. He said, "when?"

"Probably no more than a week from now. I know, it's a little sudden, but," Anders gestured, a wide arc that encompassed everything, "I see Hawke everywhere, because he's been with me here everywhere. I need to get away. The mage underground needs me elsewhere as well, and it's about time I come out of hiding."

Fenris stared ahead, biting into his bottom lip lightly, the only betrayal of his emotions. If Anders wanted him along, he would have asked. Anders squeezed his hand, already over Fenris' own between them.

"I'll be coming back," he said, not breaching the distance with more than just the touch of his palm. "When I'm ready."

He left in five days. The clinic he left to Fenris' care, along with a few young apostates that Anders had been training in healing magic. Fenris protested the responsibility at first, but Anders insisted, "you're the best surgeon I know - you don't even have to open them up! Besides, I trust you."

 _Damn the mage and his honeyed tongue._ Fenris took to it, as he had helped out in the clinic for months, reading picture books to sick children and winning them over with his expert removal of splinters.

Living in the clinic and not his empty mansion with its crumbling walls, Fenris began to understand the reasoning behind Anders' decision. Even without Anders, he wasn't lonely anymore. In the same way that Anders needed to be away from Kirkwall and its stifling confines that was all Hawke in order to find who he was again, Fenris needed company other than Anders', or Hawke's, to recognize his own worth.

It also brought to light that what he felt for Anders wasn't just his need to be near somebody, but that Anders was somebody special.

Some days were hectic, full of death, leaving Fenris to sulk over a bloody operating table and he felt the loss of a life he was unable to save. Others he brought to the world babies that could not have been delivered any other way but through his glowing lyrium.

Aveline asked him if he felt at home here, and he answered, "it feels. That itself has been a surprise."

Everyday he was surrounded by people who had grown used to his presence, among humans and elves and dwarves, even mages, and each one of them would have informed him if his former master came knocking.

When Danarius arrived at the docks, Fenris found out via the dock hands that moored his ship before he even disembarked.

He called in a few favors, from friends he wouldn't have known if he wasn't working in the clinic, templars who came to darktown to rid themselves of the clap instead of going to their Circle healers and answering embarrassing questions to the Knight Commander.

Kirkwall had a lot of templars. Danarius should have known better than to try to find him here. He became a footnote, his name not even mentioned, in a report intercepted and routed to Varric of bloodmages executed on site for resisting arrest.

Seasons passed, and news trickled in from all over the Free Marches, of groups of mages escaping right under templar noses, entire storage facilities for phylacteries brought down by massive firestorms.

Anders wrote, but not in the conventional sense. He sent back bits and pieces of souvenirs wrapped and sealed in such a way as to be invulnerable to blades or magic, sent to the Viscount's Keep to Aveline so that no one dared try to intercept them, made to be opened only by Fenris.

They contained records of his travels not in words but in a trail of crumbs: a pair of Antivan leather boots, cinnamon bark from Rivain, a loose black shirt made of Orlesian silk, a little keepsake box with the flag of the Anderfels carved into its cover.

Where Anders went he brought chaos. The Chantry was up in arms, Knight Commander Meredith had gone a little mad, and little templar recruits were quaking in their beds at night passing tales of the mage abomination with glowing blue eyes and the strength of ten men in each arm.

Varric was quite proud of his description, spreading it like wildfire from the Rose to the Gallows.

It had been a year with sporadic gifts from Anders but no real word, and nothing for the past month. Fenris was getting agitated at people for the smallest of things, but they knew the reason so even the children didn't bother him.

"Are you brooding again?" It was just like him, to simply show up unannounced and say something annoying. After a year Fenris expected some maturity in character, but it seemed Anders just got more of his old self back.

There was a smile on his face so wide though, that Fenris couldn't stay mad.

"You blighted mage. I thought you had ..." he didn't know what to do with his hands. Uncertainty gnawed at him, there was no correspondence and there was never anything said of the state of their relationship, if there was even one. For all he knew, the mage had taken up with someone else on his travels.

But Anders was moving, more agile than Fenris remembered, pulling him into his arms and Fenris met a nose full of feathers, "I missed you."

Fenris' arms came up to wrap around Anders' back, the coat singed in places and travel-worn and a little strange, familiar now only in his dreams, "there is such a thing as postal service. I rather expected you to use it."

"About that," Anders looked a little sheepish, "there won't be any post from Val Royeaux to Kirkwall for a while. Meredith's sent for the right of annulment so I've ... kind of cut her off."

"You disrupted an entire trunk of the post to intercept one letter?" And it was just like Anders too, to not know when to stop or when an action was too much.

"Don't tell Aveline?" Anders grinned, bright, truly happy, and beautiful even with bits of earth still in his hair from sleeping on the road and the stubble so overgrown it was curling at the ends.

Fenris' smile echoed Anders' own, before it was swept up in a kiss with a year's worth of longing, Anders' stubble soft and brushed against his chin instead of rasping across it, his hair longer and his scent held more ozone and lightning than elfroot. Fenris didn't taste of wine, and his lips carried an undercurrent of lyrium tang.

War was in the air, with the smell of brimstone and fire in the distance, just out of the periphery of now, but at this very moment, they still wanted each other.

They had both changed from their selves that were in Hawke's shadow, different people than the Anders and Fenris that met nearly five years ago, hating each other at first sight. Anders thought back to a time when he was convinced that people were static and unchanging, becoming fully what they were as time passed. He was still sad, sometimes, thinking of Hawke, and how he had died before he experienced what good change could bring.

"War is coming," he held Fenris close. Anders was surprisingly tall when he stood straight without the little hunch he threw in to make himself smaller, "can you see yourself defending a bunch of mages?"

Fenris laughed, a ringing sound that surprised them both, and he was left wondering why he hadn't felt the urge to do so before, "just as long as they're not blood mages."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, will be all. Thank you for sticking with me - when I picked up this prompt I did not expect it to roll out this long, and by roll, it was really a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
> 
> Have I mentioned how much I love happy endings?


End file.
